


So Long, and Goodnight

by ToxikCherrys16



Series: Alone series [1]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: British Sign Language, Eventual Happy Ending, Fights between Brothers, Fights with Parents, Heartbreak, Hospitals, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Fandoms Not Mentioned in Tags, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Sarcasm, Self-Harm, Sign Language, Suicide Attempt, random facts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-10 19:27:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 22
Words: 36,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7858105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxikCherrys16/pseuds/ToxikCherrys16
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*COMPLETE* John is going through a troubling time and instead of asking for help, he goes to the extreme of getting out of his guilt. WARNING - Contains themes of self-harm, suicide and depression. Disclaimer - I DO NOT OWN THUNDERBIRDS. Set in June 2052 (Alone series. Part 1/4)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> This story is complete and posted on fanfiction.net. Yes I am the writer, just incase anybody who has read it on there thinks I've copied it.
> 
> Hope you enjoy reading it.

 

** Chapter 1 **

** Goodbye **

 

** POV – John **

 

   It was my fault. My entire fault. If I hadn’t asked to stay out longer, we wouldn’t have been there. She wouldn’t have died.

   They all blamed me. My family blamed me for what happened to mom. I blamed me for what happened.

   Dad was always at work; and when he was home, he could barely even look at me. I could tell though… he didn’t care about me. He probably wished I’d died instead of mom.

   Scott. Well, he had his arms full. He was looking after all of us; getting us to school, making sure we did our homework, get to bed on time, and still keeping his grades up. With the Terrible Two to look after, I didn’t blame him for not noticing what was happening to me.

   Virgil. He hadn’t so much as touched the Grand Piano in the living room or picked up a paintbrush. Oh how I wanted to hear him play again before I went through with what I was planning.

   Gordon, aka one half of the Terrible Two. Our little fish. More at home in the water then on dry land. I hope he’d keep on doing his pranks, no matter how much they annoyed the rest of the family.

   And Alan, the other half of the Terrible Two. He’s only six. I hope that he can forgive me one day. All he knows is that we went on a skiing holiday when he was five, I went out with mom, and she never came back.

   I’d been trapped under the snow, mom protecting me as much as she could. She talked to me until I fell unconscious. I don’t know how long we were trapped, but I’d woken up a week later in the hospital with a fractured left arm, dislocated shoulder, broken collar bone and a concussion, to be told mom was dead.

   That’s when I first started to feel the blame. The hurt in dad’s eyes, the tears in my brothers. And Alan asking where mom was and when was she coming back. He didn’t understand that she wasn’t coming back.

   It was when we got home, that’s when dad started going to work early and coming home late or not at all. He started locking himself away in his office for hours when he was home.

   Grandma helped where she could, but she lived about an hours drive away from us, so she wasn’t around all the time. She’d also lost Grandpa Grant in the avalanche that took mom, so she was grieving as well. She probably blamed me too.

   I’d been self-harming for a while. Nothing where anybody could see easily like my wrists, but on my stomach, hips and thighs. I’d also lost a lot of weight due to not eating, and throwing up what I did; not that anybody would notice the weight loss because of the baggy clothes I wore. And the bags under my marine eyes were more like bruises. The curse of nightmares and being a light sleeper.

   And like the packrat I am, I’d hid some of the tablets the hospital had given me for depression. Hidden them away on the top shelf in my room, along with a razor blade and a note for each of my brothers, my dad and Grandma.

   Only when planning this, I’d forgotten how hard is was to get to the top shelf. You had to climb on the desk, stand on tiptoes and lean to get to the shelf; and you had to be extra careful when coming back down.

   Using this method I was able to grab the envelopes, the blade and the pills, but slipped on some of the loose papers on my desk and fallen to the floor with a thud, and dropped what I was holding.

   There was a bang on the opposite wall.

   Crap!

   Scott was finishing the last of his coursework in his room before the start of the summer holidays; which started in a couple of weeks.

   “Cut it out, John.” Scott’s muffled voice came from through the wall, “I just want some quiet to finish my work.

   “Sorry.” I called back, grabbing everything up, “I didn’t mean to make any noise. I just slipped.

   “Just try and keep it down.”

   “I will.”

   My last words? I though it was going to be something sentimental or meaningful, but I wasn’t going to track down somebody and do that, and I doubt Scott would appreciate me disturbing him again. I didn’t want them to know what I had planned or stopping me.

   So this was it. I could feel the tears prickling at the corners of my eyes, threatening to overflow the moment I blinked.

   I stood up and deposited everything on my desk, before putting all my letters in a line by my computer. All of them individually named and each having their own individual letter; Gordon and Alan weren’t going to know why I did this. Virgil would probably guess the reason. Scott, dad and Grandma would know though. They deserved to know why.

   Next I grabbed the pill bottle off the desk, my mug of luke-warm tea from the bedside cabinet and sat down on the edge of my bed; emptying out the contents of the bottle onto my bed.

   Damn! I hadn’t collected as many as I’d thought. So much for being a packrat. A rough guess… I had twenty to twenty five. Not enough to kill me if I was found in time, but enough to send me to sleep; and possibly kill me if I wasn’t found for a few hours. I’d have to use the razor too; if I was to be sure I’d die no matter what happened. Something I hadn’t wanted to do.

   Taking a couple of the pills and my tea, I started to swallow them two at a time until they were all gone. I never could get to grips with dry-swallowing medication or anything like that.

   It would’ve been nice to just go to sleep, not realizing that I was never going to wake up again. Not being in pain anymore. But I was an idiot for not hiding more of my tablets.

   And waiting was hard. I didn’t just want to swallow the pills and then slice my wrists. I wanted to die in as little pain as possible; and if that meant waiting for the meds to kick in, then so be it.

   They started to kick in about half an hour after I’d taken the first pill. Also having nothing in my stomach helped them kick in faster too.

   “Shit.” I muttered to myself. I’d left the razor on my desk when I took the pill bottle and tea over to my bed. Now I had to get up, cross the room, grab it, and make my way back. Given how quickly this fuzziness had come on, I doubted I’d even be able to make it back to my bed before I fell asleep.

   Screw it. I’d just have to cut my arms as soon as I get a hold of the blade. This was turning out to be the worst plan I’d ever come up with – and this included my very unsuccessful prank on Virgil last year; in which I planned to try wake him up using an air-horn; not realizing the Terrible Two had beaten me, and had put mouse traps all over his floor. That hurt.

   I stood up, swaying slightly, and made my way over to the desk, grabbing the razor in my left and slicing down my right wrist; before switching hands and doing the same to my left wrist.

   To be honest, it felt good. The sticky warmth running down my arms was a bit unpleasant though.

   But because of the combination of the pills and blood loss, I barely even noticed I was falling to the ground; until I hit it with an impressive thump. I just gently lowered the rest of me onto my side.

   It wasn’t as bad as I though it was going to be. The blood loss was a nice way to go; it wasn’t as painful as I’d imagined.

   And just as I started to black out, I could just about make out a pounding on my door and something being shouted, but I couldn’t make out what.

   It was then that I let the darkness consume me.


	2. Race

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John is found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brothers birthdays:  
> Scott Carpenter Tracy - April 4th 2037  
> John Glenn Tracy - October 8th 2038  
> Virgil Grissom Tracy - August 15th 2040  
> Gordon Cooper Tracy - February 14th 2043  
> Alan Shepard Tracy - March 12th 2046

 

** Chapter 2 **

** Race **

****

** POV – Scott **

 

   All I asked for was a couple hours of peace and quiet to get the bulk of my coursework done over the weekend, when another crash came from my first-born brother’s room.

   That was it. I’d already told him to be quiet, but had he listened? Obviously he hadn’t because he was still making noise. I’d asked if he was going to be making much noise when I first came up. He said I didn’t have to worry about him making any sort of sound.

   I got up from my desk, walked out of my room and went to John’s door. I started to knock on the oak door.

   “Come on, John. I know you’re in there.” I called through his closed door, “If you want to make noise, go downstairs.”

   As I started to turn round, I realized there had been no answer. That was very unlike him. John was the one who would come out with some smart-ass, sarcastic comment. He was the quietist of us, but he had a dry sense of humour and would use it at any appropriate time.

   “John, come on buddy – open up.” I was really worried now. No answer, and no sign of any movement coming from beyond the door was always a bad sign. I’d learned that from experience.

   _Alright._ I thought, _let’s try the door._

   It was locked.

   Ever since the avalanche had trapped him, he didn’t like his door being locked or sleeping without some form of light. He was afraid of being trapped again, and a locked door and a dark room made him feel trapped; no matter who was with him or the circumstances.

   “John!” I was banging on his door now, “If you don’t open the door, I’m going to break it down.”

   Still no answer. That was it.

   With all the strength I had, I shouldered the door. It took a couple of attempts, but I finally made it through.

   And what I saw made my blood run cold. My next down brother, laying in a pool of his own blood.

   After a couple seconds of frozen panic, I ran forward; ripping off my t-shirt and ripping it in two.

   “No!” I fell to my knees next to a very pale looking John; blood caking the knees of my jeans, “Why, John, why?”

   I felt for a pulse on his neck. Thank God. There was one. I took the two parts of my t-shirt and wrapped both halves round his wrists. Thankfully I had basic medical training.

   “Virgil!” I yelled, checking the ties I’d made, “Call Grandma. Tell her to get here as quick as she can.”

   Not waiting for his reply, I pulled the cell phone out of my jeans pocket and dialled 911.

   “911, what’s your emergency?” The calm voice on the other end answered.

   “I need an ambulance. It’s my brother, he’s…” I choked up. I can’t cry. John needs me to be strong.

   “Okay an ambulance has been dispatched, so let’s start with this.” Her calm voice was really helping me keep calm, “What’s your address?”

   I gave her the address of our Kansas Farm House.

   “Alright, it has been routed to your address. I’ll stay on the line with you till they arrive.” She informed me, “My name is Rose. What’s yours?”

   “Scott.”

   “And how old are you, Scott?”

   “Fifteen.”

   “What about your brother?”

   “John.” I answered, “He’s thirteen, and….”

   I looked up and noticed the orange pill bottle laying open on his bed.

   “And what, Scott?”

   “God, John. What did you take?”

   No response, but it wasn’t as if I was really was expecting to get an answer from him… More as a reaction of shock.

   That’s when I heard someone coming up the stairs. I just hoped it wasn’t Gordon or Alan.

   “I’ve called Grandma…” Virgil started before he got to the doorway and stopped mid sentence. He’d obviously seen John and I, “What the hell happened?”

   “Virg, I have no idea.” I told him, “I’m on the phone with 911 and they’ve got an ambulance on the way.”

   “But there’s so much blood.” He whispered.

   “I know, but I have to stay calm, and so do you.” I told him, “Now, can you get me the pill bottle and tell me what was in there?”

   He nodded, stepping over the blood and taking the bottle.

   “Xanax. Hang on… this is from when he was in the hospital. He stopped taking these months ago.”

   “Okay.” I breathed, my hands starting to shake a little, “Go and look after the Terrible Two. Keep them entertained. They don’t need to see this. I’m sorry you had to.”

   “But I’m the…”

   “I know you’re the medic of this family, Virg, but without dad here…”

   “I understand.” He said, making his way to the door, “What else do you need me to do?”

   “Get the door when the ambulance gets here and bring them up here. Stay with Gordon and Alan till Grandma gets here, and then make your way to the hospital. I’ll call once I’m there.”

   “Alright.” He turned to leave.

   “And Virgil.” I waited till he turned around, “Pack a bag for all of us once we leave. I have to go with John.”

   He nodded and left.

   “Everything alright, Scott?” Rose asked, making me jump a little, “I heard about blood and Xanax.”

   It took me a few seconds to give my answer. Was everything alright? John had slashed his wrists and taken his old anti-depressants, I was the oldest person in the house and I had to leave my three other brothers when help arrived.

   “No.” I answered.

   “What happened to John?”

   “I… I believe my brother has attempted suicide.”

   Rose’s entire demeanour changed. She became more serious.

   “The ambulance is five minutes out. Is there somebody who can open the door when the EMT’s arrive?”  
   “Yes.”

   “What has John done?”

   “He’s slashed his wrists – which I’ve tried to treat as best as I can – and taken Xanax by the looks of it. I don’t know how much he’s taken though. I didn’t even know he still had the bottle. He hasn’t taken them for months.”

   “Okay.” She said, “Are your parents around? I heard you taking to somebody.”

   “No. Dad’s away on a business trip and our mom died at the beginning of January, six months ago.” I informed her, “Our Grandma is on her way over to look after the youngsters.”

   “How many of you are there?”

   “Five, including John and me. I’m the oldest, followed by John, then Virgil who’s eleven, Gordon at nine, and lastly Alan. He’s six.”

   I checked John’s pulse again; I’d been doing it periodically every minute from the time I first checked. It was getting weaker.

   “How long till the ambulance gets here?” Panic in my voice.

   “Three minutes.”

   My panic continued to rise as John’s pulse continued to get weaker. I re-checked the tourniquets I’d tied round his arms when I found him. If I tied them any tighter, he’d loose all blood circulation; which in the long run, would be worse.

   “Tell the EMT’s that we’re on the second floor; and a boy with black hair will show them up, I’ve done an improv tourniquets, with my t-shirt, round both his wrists and…”

   The pulse under my fingers slowly faded to nothing. And it felt as if my heart had stopped along with his pulse.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about another cliff-hanger. Leave reviews if you want.


	3. The Long Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens to John?

** Chapter 3 **

** The Long Wait **

** **

 

**POV – Virgil**

 

I ended up walking down the stairs in a state of shock. It was like I was having a bad dream that I couldn’t wake up from.

And as much as I wanted to just go to my room and cry, I couldn’t allow Gordon and Alan to come up here and see what I’d just seen.

“What’s up, Virg?” Gordon asked. I hadn’t even realized I’d made it to the den till he spoke.

“Nothing.” I answered.

“So why did Scotty want you to ring Grandma?” That was Alan.

Scott said to keep them out of this, so I would. No matter what the cost of me doing that was.

“He needs her to look after us for a while.”

“Why? Have we been bad?”

All these questions. I couldn’t stand their need to ask questions instead of just doing and accepting what they were told.

“No, you haven't been bad. John’s has an accident.” I didn’t know if it was an accident or not, so I just had to tell them what was easiest, “Scott is going to go with him to the hospital when the ambulance arrives.”

“Is Johnny going to be okay?”

That was the only question I didn’t have the answer to, and I wasn’t going to tell them something I didn’t know.

“I hope so.” I mumbled, before speaking a bit louder, “Now, why don’t we put on a movie for the both of you to watch till Grandma gets here?”

Probably not one the best thing to say to two of my brothers, but hopefully they’d keep out of the way when the movie started. They’d… Excuse me; Gordon had picked out ‘Finding Nemo.’ No surprise there.

And the waiting was agony. I probably would’ve started pacing if I thought it would help the EMT’s get here any quicker; but I knew that would only alert the Terrible Two, and they’d just worry even more.

Then I heard the ambulance sirens coming. They were close, but still a couple of minutes out.

Apparently Gordon and Alan had heard it to, as they both looked up at me with questioning eyes.

“Is that the help coming for Johnny?” Alan asked, shifting to look up at me. It felt like his blue eyes were boring into my brown ones.

I nodded.

“I need you to stay here while I show the paramedics where John and Scott are, okay?” I said, getting up and leaving the room.

Just as I got to, and opened, the front door; the ambulance was turning into the street. Talk about timing.

When they stopped outside our house, the paramedic in the back of the ambulance barely waited for it to come to a halt; before jumping out with a bulky, bright orange bag and a backboard.

His partner followed him, only after she stopped the ambo, and grabbed a few other things from the rig; before she proceeded to run towards the house.

“Where are they?” The female asked, shifting the bag on her shoulder.

“Follow me.” I said, turning and virtually running up the stairs; the EMT’s following close on my heels.

To me, it felt like an age to get up the stairs; but it was only about thirty seconds to reach John’s room. And I wished I hadn’t seen what I did.

Seeing John laying in his blood the first time was bad enough, but this time was even worse.

Scott was still kneeling next to our ginger brother but, unlike before, he was doing chest compressions. John’s heart had stopped, and Scott was desperately trying to get it beating again.

I vaguely remember getting out the way for the EMT’s to get past me, but I kept my eyes fixed on my two older brothers.

“Take over on next breath.” I heard Scott say, as he continued doing the compressions, “Twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine, and thirty.”

The male paramedic then took over, while the female started getting out a small, portable defib.

“How long have you been doing CPR?” She asked, cutting John’s t-shirts and attaching the pads to his chest.

“About two minutes.”

Two minutes! I left Scott no more than five minutes ago, and in that time John’s heart stopped. He’d died!

It was then that I saw all the blood on Scott’s undershirt, over his hands, and on the knees of his jeans. Not that I hadn’t seen the blood before, I just hadn’t noticed how much of it had soaked into his clothes.

And how was there this much blood? It looked like there was too much for anybody to survive. I swear there wasn’t this much when I came up here last time.

“Charging two hundred.” Somebody said, “Shocking… and clear.”

There was the charging noise and slight popping sound, before John’s body jerked into a slight arc and hit the ground again.

“Pushing epi.”

I couldn’t move. I was frozen in shock, you might say. All my brain could fully comprehend was that Scott and the EMT’s were trying to get John’s heart beating again.

They shocked him again, but I was too busy focusing on the flat green line on one of the monitors attached to his chest.

“Virgil.” I heard my name being called, but I couldn’t bring myself to look up from the monitor, “Virgil. Look at me.”

But I couldn’t. My immediate older brother was being shocked as they tried to save his life.

“Virgil!”

It was Scott. He looked like he wanted to put his hands on my shoulders, but thought better of it. He realized that his hands were covered in blood.

“Is Johnny going to die?” I asked, my voice breaking; finally speaking again as the tears rolled down my face.

And it was in that moment I realized, that I couldn’t be strong like I wanted to. That I couldn’t sit downstairs and lie to our younger brothers about our resident starman.

He took his time to reply; obviously thinking about how he could word it for me, or debating on whether to tell me what he really thought.

“I don’t know.” He answered, “I hope he doesn’t. We need him, and I didn’t realize how much until now. We’ve left him alone for too long. And we all began to act differently around him after the accident.”

Until Scott mentioned it, I hadn’t realized that we’d all been doing it. We hadn’t even noticed he still the anti-depressants the hospital had given him after the avalanche.

“What kind of people are we, if we didn’t notice our brother was hurting to the point of suicide?”

Shock, thump.

“Awful. That’s what we are.” Scott answered, “And we’re going to fix it when he gets better.”

“How? How are we going to fix this?”

“I don’t know, but we will. Maybe he left something in his letters.”

Scott walked back into John’s room, carefully avoiding all the wires and the EMT’s as he made his way over to his desk.

Wiping his hands on the thighs of his jeans, he picked up the line of envelopes that rested on John’s desk.

He made his way back, and handed me all but one of the letters. I assumed that was his.

“We will make it better though.”

Another shock, and then a steady beeping sound.

“We’ve got him back. Let’s move.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another cliffie. Sorry.


	4. The Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trip to the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All medical stuff mentioned has been researched, but if any of it is wrong... Blame google and anything I read to get said information.

** Chapter 4 **

** The Nightmare. **

** POV – Scott **

 

   As soon as I heard those few words, I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew he wasn’t out of the woods yet, but at least he was alive.

   “Just think about how John’s alive right now. He’s alright for now.” I told Virgil, pocketing my letter, “So it means we still have a chance to make it up to him.”

   I looked back at the EMT’s. They were getting John, along with all the wires attached to him, onto a backboard and re-doing my shoddily done tourniquets.

   “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him while I can, and the hospital will do the best they can for him when we get there. I won’t let anything else happen to him.”

   By this time, the two EMT’s had John on the backboard and were getting ready to lift him up. They couldn’t get the stretcher up here, so they’d had to leave it downstairs.

   “One, two, three and lift.” One of the paramedics said, and John was hoisted into the air.

   Virgil started down the stairs first, followed by the paramedics, John and me; granted the EMT’s were slower. And our home isn’t really backboard friendly, with the sharp corner turns and bannisters.

   When we finally got downstairs and got John onto the stretcher, that’s when we ran into our first problem.

   It seemed as though Gordon and Alan had been tentatively listening out for our return downstairs, and had walked out of the den when they heard us. And there was no way I could hide my blood soaked clothes from them.

   They stood in the doorway, looks of shock on their young faces.

   “Why are your clothes red?”

   “Are you okay?”  
   “Is Johnny okay?”

   A bombardment of questions I knew I couldn’t answer. Well I could, but not right now. I had to go with John.

   Looking at Virgil, I knew he would do what he had to, even if he was barely keeping it together. He’d do what he had to till Grandma arrived.

   “Don’t give them the letters.” I whispered in his ear, “Give Grandma hers when she gets here, but keep the others hidden. I’ll call when we get to the hospital. Remember what I asked?”  
   He gave me the faintest of nods, before hiding the other letters in his rucksack on the stairs.

   “I’ll answer your questions later.” I told our youngest siblings, looking out the door to the ambulance; where John was being loaded up, “But I have to go.”

   I took off at a sprint and nearly fell into the back of the rig, closing the doors behind me; taking one last look at the three brothers I was leaving behind.

   “Why didn’t you talk to us, Space Case?” I said to him, paying close attention to what the EMT, named Greg, was doing, “We could’ve been there for you. Helped you before it got to this.”

   It was silent for about a minute, only the steady beeping of the machine making an impact on me, when another noise made me nearly jump out of my skin. I don’t think it would’ve been that bad if I’d actually been paying attention.

   “Shoot.” Greg suddenly whispered, “Do you know what blood type your brother is?”

   What blood type was my brother? Shit, I don’t know… Wait, I do. He was tested in the hospital back in January. Come on, Scott. Think!

   “He’s uh… He’s O negative.” I told him, looking down at John’s wrists.

   The blood had started seeping through the bandages, all be it slower then when I first found him. But he couldn’t afford to lose any more blood.

   Greg hung another bag of something up and attached it to the IV port in John’s hand.

   “Lindsey, call ahead. See if we have any O neg patients.” He called through the little window, “We need at least a couple of pints, and some spare.”

   From the front of the rig, I heard Lindsey talking to somebody. Her voice was calm and steady, but I could hear how frightened she was in it.

   “Isn’t Greenie O neg?” I heard her ask, “She could give blood.”

   He thought about this for a couple of second, as if he was trying to remember. A little bit like me when I was trying to remember John’s.

   “I think she is, but get the hospital to check that. We don’t want to do more harm than good.”

   “What do you mean ‘more harm than good’?” It sounded like my voice had gone up an octave or two, making me sound a bit like a chipmunk, “Can’t he receive any blood? He’s a universal recipient, right?”

   Paramedic Greg looked like he was about to tell a child that their pet rabbit had just died.

   “John has a rare blood type. His blood can be given to anybody, but he can only receive blood from somebody with the same type as him.” He told me, raising my brother’s arms above his head. He was trying to stop the bleeding, or at least keep it to a minimum.

   The sirens were going full blast as well, something I hadn’t noticed when I was focused on John’s heartbeat. It seemed to be louder then it did when you hear it on the street or in passing.

   I looked down at my next down brother. He looked so pale, so peaceful… a little bit like an angel. Like he looked when he was laying unconscious in the hospital, after he’d been pulled out from under the snow. When we were still trying to get his body temperature up. When we didn’t know if he would actually live.

   “Greenie is O neg.” A voice cut through my train of thought, “Says she’s giving blood now, and that we owe her a big bag of maoams.”

   “That’s great news. I’ll find her before we have to leave again. Give her a big hug, and tell her we’ll get her sweets.” Greg almost laughed with glee.

   They’ve found somebody who has the same blood type as my brother. Somebody who can save John’s life.

   “You know how she is with touch, Greg. Be careful, cause last time you hugged her; she gave you one impressive shiner and broke your nose.”  
   If the situation had been different, I’d probably have laughed. John was sort of the same when it came to touch, but he didn’t lash out when he was hugged. He just tensed up and waited until it was over. You had to let him come to you.

   “I will never, ever say that girls are weak again. It hurt like hell, and looked like I’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson.”  
   That did make me smile. I looked something like that one time when I’d been roughhousing with Virgil, and he elbowed me in the face.

   “Who’s Greenie?” I asked. I wanted to know about the person who was potentially the person who was saving John.

   “We don’t really know anything about her. She’s known as Jane Doe. We know she likes maoam’s, her nickname is Greenie, she going to turn thirteen next month and she’s been in the hospital for close on five months. She just won’t talk to anybody about what happened to her.”

   “What happened?”  
   “She was found on a walking trail in early February, bleeding and beaten. After we got her stabilised, we found out she’d tried to kill herself. She freaked once she realized she’d been not only been found, but saved as well. She keeps trying to runaway or kill herself again.”

   I was going to ask another question, but Lindsey’s voice cut through our conversation. She sounded a little angry, but I think she was more pissed that Greg was discussing ‘Jane’ with me.

   “One minute to the hospital. Be ready to move as soon as we stop. We don’t have any time to waste, and the sooner he gets the transfusion the better.”

 


	5. Bravest of the Brave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken me so long to update. Crazyness at home. I'm uploading 4 chapters, so I hope that makes up for it.

** Chapter 5 **

** Bravest of the Brave **

 

 

 

** POV – Virgil **

 

   Seeing Scott’s frightened face, as he closed the doors of the ambulance, scared me. I thought nothing could phase him, but this was different. This wasn’t something on the street or TV… This was our space-loving sibling.

   And while Scott was away helping John, I was in charge until Grandma got here. I just hoped that she wasn’t too much longer, so I could go to my room and process everything that has happened.

   “In the den, you two.” I told Alan and Gordon, as I closed the front door and turned away from the ambulance that was now speeding towards the hospital.

   “Why did Scotty go? Is he hurt too?” Alan asked, not moving from his place in the doorway to the living room.

   I knelt down in front of him and put my hands on his shoulders. It’s hard to explain to a six year old what is happening to their older brother.

   “Johnny is ill.” I said, looking into his blue eyes and then up to Gordon, “And he has to go to the hospital. Scott is going with him to make sure that he gets the best care possible.”

   He thought about this for a few seconds.

   “Like he did with me when I got sick?”

   “Exactly like that.”

   At least he understood this, even if he didn’t understand what was going on completely. Thank God they didn’t know what had happened upstairs, cause it had defiantly scared me. Imagine what seeing John like that would do to a six and nine year old.

   “We’ll be going to the hospital as well, to check on them, as soon as Grandma gets here. She’ll be looking after us while John is in the hospital.”

   “When will daddy be coming home? He had to now that Johnny is in the hospital, doesn’t he?”

   That was a good question. I hadn’t even thought about calling dad, and I didn’t know if I could at the moment.

   But I had to.

   “I don’t know, Sprout.” I replied, “I give him a call now, and if he doesn’t answer; I’ll get Grandma to call him when she gets here.”

   I have two jobs to do now, and I can’t allow the kids to come up with me. They can’t see what John’s room looks like now.

   “Now, I shall say this only once; get your butts the den. I have to do a couple things for Scotty before Grandma gets here, and I don’t want to tell either of them that you haven’t been listening to me.”

   That got them moving. Nobody wanted to be on the bad side of Scott or Grandma Tracy; not even dad.

   Once I’d made sure that the Terrible Two were situated in front of the holographic TV – with Gordon singing ‘Just keep swimming’ with Dory – I got to work.

   It was easy to pack for the kids, just a couple changes of clothes, a toy and games, clothes and notebook for Scott, and sketchpad and clothes for me, but what I found difficult was John’s packing.

   The door to his room was still open, but I couldn’t bring myself to step in. I could see and smell the drying blood that caked his floor… Still see his lifeless body on the ground, even though it wasn’t there.

   “Pull yourself together.” My voice barely a whisper, but still cracking as tears threatened to spill from my eyes, “You can’t break just yet. You need to get John’s things.”

   Gingerly, I stepped into his room; stepping around the blood and grabbing what I needed – a pair of pyjamas, his glasses, constellation nightlight, astro teddy, NASA tee and a change of clothes.

   Just as I was about to leave, something caught my eye. On his nightstand was a very large, hardback copy of IT by Stephen King. He prefers paperbacks, so this one was a rarity for John.

   I put that in his bag as well. It could go with his copy of ‘A Brief History of Time’ by Prof. Stephen Hawking. He’s such a nerd.

   “But he’s our nerd.” I said, leaving his room and taking all the bags downstairs; taking John’s letters from my rucksack and putting them in my overnight bag.

   And now really was a waiting game.

   Grandma shouldn’t be too much longer, and then we could get out of here and go see John. I needed to see that he was alright; awake and talking, not pale and unconscious.

   What made Johnny want to do this? I mean we’ve tried to include him in our games, but he just doesn’t want to join in.

   We knew he was injured and hurting, but he just shut us out instead of letting us try to help him.

   He wouldn’t even talk about what happened… He started to talk less and less as well.

   And even though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, we could hear him screaming in his sleep. He’d wake from nightmares three or four times a night; start pacing until he calmed down, but just say he was thinking if asked about it. He wouldn’t even tell dad the truth if he asked.

   Talking about dad, I still had to call him. Tell him about what was going on.

   _Going to phone dad._ _Done all the packing for us. Be there as soon as we can._ I texted Scott.

   “No avoiding it now.” I told myself, as I went through my contacts, “You’ve got to do it.”

   Finding dad’s number, I pressed call. It really was too late to back out now.

   But the line just kept on ringing, and ringing, before it finally got to his voicemail.

    “This is the phone of Jeff Tracy, please leave your message after the beep.”

    We always joked that dad’s voicemail was short and to the point, but it was now just infuriating me. The one time I really need to get through to him, and I’m just greater by this short message.

    “Hey dad, it’s Virgil.” I started, thinking if it was really appropriate to tell him about the situation via his answer messages, “You need to come home. Something’s happened, and we really need you. Grandma’s on her way, so don’t worry about us needing to be looked after but… I think it’s time for a well overdue family meeting. Call me when you get this. Bye.”

    A short and to the point message, just like his. That’s what was needed, and that is what was given. No way in hell was I going to go into detail, even if I thought he ought to know what was going on.

    And it was almost on queue, that at the end of my call to dad, Grandma burst through the front door and made her way over to where I was sitting at the foot of the stairs. For an old lady, she certainly knew how to move fast.

    She enveloped me into a hug and it was then, and only then, that I allowed myself to start crying. I didn’t have to be strong and the one in charge now. I could cry and worry for my older brother.

    “You don’t have to tell me what happened now, but I do want an answer in the near future.” She whispered into my ear, as I cried into her shoulder, “However, I think that Scott will have a better understanding.”

     It was at this moment that I was glad that I wasn’t the oldest. I most certainly didn’t give Scott enough credit with having to look after his four younger brothers, and still get all of his work done on time.

    “John wrote you a letter.” I blurted out. Thankfully it was muffled a little bit by Grandma’s shoulder.

    “He what?”

    “He wrote a letter to each of us. Scott has his, and I have the rest in my bag.” I cried, not knowing what else to do, “He told me not to give Alan and Gordon their letters, and I don’t know what to tell them.”

    Grandma started rubbing my back as she held me.

    “They know that he was taken away in an ambulance, but they want to know what’s going on. I just told them that John was sick and needed looking after but… They saw the blood on Scott’s clothes.”

    “Don’t worry about that now.” She told me, giving me a pat on the back before she pulled away, “What we need to do, is get to the hospital. Do I have to pack your overnight bags?”

    I shook my head.

    “Scott asked me to do the bags. I even packed one for Johnny.”

    A small smile tugged on the edge of her lips.

    “Well, let’s get the other two, and then we can head off. I dare say that Scott needs one of my hugs too.”

    It was a couple more minutes of before we were able to head off, because Gordon had to be forcibly dragged away from Finding Nemo. He only moved on his own when Grandma threatened to bake him some cookies.

 


	6. The World is Ugly

** Chapter 6 **

** The World is Ugly **

 

** POV - Scott **

 

    As soon as we’d arrived at the hospital, John’s stretcher was pulled from the ambulance and he was taken straight into surgery. And I’d just been left for dust, left to stand around in the waiting room for any news of my brother.

    And I hated it. I hated the waiting, and the not being told what was going on. Just because I wasn’t his legal guardian didn’t mean that I shouldn’t know what’s happening.

    So I was now just pacing to have something to do, holding John’s letter in my hands. It was a little bloody and you could hardly tell that it had ‘Scott’ written in his messy, but legible, handwriting.

    How could I read his suicide note to me though? Yes, I’d find out why he did what he did, but I was scared to open it. Did I really want to read what could possibly have been John’s last written words?

    My pacing only ceased when the phone in my pocket buzzed. I’d forgotten to call once I’d got here. Everything had happened so quickly, and it had just slipped my mind.

    I fished the phone out of my pocket and unlocked it. It was a text from Virg.  _Going to phone dad. Done all the packing for us. Be there as soon as we can._

Well at least that was something I didn’t have to do. I’d probably have to talk to him later, but at least for now I was off the hook.

    _Alright. No news yet. See you when you get here. Might have something when you arrive._ I sent back before I resumed my pacing, only to stop once again when a voice started talking to me.

    “You know that pacing won’t help you. You’ll just end up making a hole in the carpet.”

    That statement made me turn around. The person who said this, was not what I was expecting at all.

   And the accent was a little strange. Like they were trying to put on an American accent but couldn’t hide the creeping’s in of their English accent. If you didn’t know the difference between them, they could probably get away with it.

    A girl – no older than about thirteen, sat almost directly behind where I was standing –had long, ginger hair falling almost like a curtain around her pale, heart-shaped face.

    She was wearing a, very baggy, NASA t-shirt, a pair of loose, hospital bottoms and some black slippers. She was also staring at an IV port in left hand, but all I could do was stare at the thick, white bandages round both her wrists.

    “And if you could stop staring, that would be wonderful.” She said, not even looking up from her hands.

    If John had been a girl, this is what he would look and be like - knowing when people were staring at him without having to look and stating facts. Not that this girl had any facial similarity to him, but her mannerisms and hair reminded me of him.

    “I’m sorry.” I replied, not moving an inch from where I was standing, “I uh… I didn’t mean to stare.”

    This caused her to look up. Her ice blue eyes almost boring into mine, as she squinted to see if what I had just said was a lie or not.

    She obviously deemed me not to be lying, because she went back to staring at her hands.

    “It’s alright, I’m just sick of people doing it.” She told me, rubbing around the IV port in her hand with her thumb, “I guess they just think I should be in my room, instead of out here with the human populous."

    “I doubt that’s true.”

    She scoffed and shook her head. It seemed that this was an ongoing battle with the people at the hospital.

    “They haven’t allowed me outside since I arrived. If it was up to the staff on my ward, I wouldn’t be allowed out of my bed.”

    “How awful.” I said, sitting down next to her, “Tell you what… If you help me, I’ll help you. How does that sound?”

    She thought about it for a couple of seconds.

    “What do you want help with?” She asked, turning slightly to look at me, “And by this I’m not saying I will help, but I’ll see what I can do.”

    “Okay.” I chuckled, smiling at her, “I need to know what’s happening with my brother. All I know is that he was taken up to surgery, but they won’t tell me anything else.”

    “Suicide?”

    “Yeah… How’d you know?”

    She smiled at me, but it wasn’t one of joy. It was one of sorrow. A smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

    “You came in with some friends of mine.” She answered, going back to looking at her hands again, “He’ll be taken to my ward after he’s out of recovery. I’ll get you what I can.”

   Some friends of mine? What the hell did that mean? But those were questions for later on. For now, she was going to help me.

    “Thank you.” It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t told her my name, “I’m Scott, by the way. Who’re you?”

    “You may find that out later.” She replied, before standing up, “But for now, I have to leave you.”

    It was only when she stood up that I realized how short she was. She was maybe five foot. If I were to stand up now, I’d tower over her.

   But I was a little perplexed about why she had to leave so suddenly.

    “Why do you have to leave?”

    It took her a couple of seconds to answer, but when she did… Why she had to leave was completely obvious.

    “They’ve found me.” She pointed at two medical staff making their way towards where we were, “I swear they put a tracker in my slippers or something. They always seem to find me."

    When I failed to stifle my laughter, she gave me a glare that would rival John’s. I’d never met anybody who could glare almost as good at John.

    “A word of advise though.”

    “And what would that be?”

    “Read the letter. Not everybody leaves one for their loved ones.”

    And with that, she walked off towards where the staff had stopped to wait for her; pulling slightly at the edges of her bandages.

    Did this girl really know what she was talking about? Was she really giving me advice when she said to open his letter?

    “Well, what’s the worst thing that could happen?” I muttered, as I gently opened the sealed envelope and took out the paper inside it.

    Taking a deep breath, I then unfolded the paper and began to read.

 

    _Dear Scott,_

_If you’re reading this, then it means that somebody found me. I just hope it wasn’t one of the kids. They don’t need to see me like that._

_First off, know that I love you and that this was the hardest decision I have ever had to make. But this is for the best. I can’t stand to see all of you in pain because of what I did._

_Secondly, I don’t blame any of you for what I did; even if you blame me for what happened to mom and what has been going on with dad._

_If I hadn’t asked to stay out a little longer, she wouldn’t have died and you guys wouldn’t hate me for her dying. If I could trade places with her, I would. I just hope that this makes it better._

_Thirdly, don’t tell Allie and Gordo what I really did. Virg will have an idea, but the Terrible Two are too young to understand what I’ve done. Please don’t tell them till they’re older. They don’t need to know what really happened to me._

_Fourthly, just be happy. Do what you want, when you want and don’t let anybody put you down. Will you do that for me?_

_And lastly… Have a fantastic life. Live to be old, get married, have a kid. Just refrain from naming any future kids after me. Keep up the tradition dad started._

_Goodbye._

_Love, John._

And with that, I let the tears run down my face.


	7. Dreamless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another John chapter. I know, and this was the hardest chapter for me to write.

** Chapter 7 **

** Dreamless **

 

 

** POV - John **

 

    It was peaceful here. I wasn’t in any pain. There was no hurt, no guilt and there seemed to be no time. I couldn't even be sure how long I’d been here. It could’ve been seconds, minutes, hours, days, months… Years, even.

    But it wasn’t how I was expecting it to be.

    Not that I was expecting it to be the pearly white gates, with somebody waiting for me with a list of who they were allowed to let in, but I was expecting it to be different from the complete darkness that seemed to surround me.

    Is this what I was condemned to? To spend eternity trapped in this place, and alone with my thoughts.

    I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to spend the rest of time by myself. I wanted to see my mom and Grandpa Grant again.

   Then a thought struck me.

    Was this punishment? For what happened at the beginning of the year, is this what I get for it?

    “I DIDN’T MEAN TO!” I tried to yell, but no sound came out, “I DIDN’T MEAN TO GET THEM KILLED! I DIDN’T WANT THEM TO DIE!”

    And it was only when I tried to speak, I noticed the complete and utter silence that seemed to fill every crevice of this place.

   And the silence would probably drive me crazy after a while. At home, there is always some kind of noise; whether it be play fighting, board game fights or the fighting sounds of whatever console game they were playing.

    But this isn’t where I wanted to be.

    If I couldn’t be with my family in death, then I didn’t want to know what was going on. That, in itself, is more painful, even if I couldn’t feel it. Knowing what is going on, yet not being able to do anything.

    “I don’t want to be here.” I whispered, knowing that nobody would here me, “This isn’t what I wanted.”

    What did you want then? To see your mom? To see your Grandpa? To escape your pain? All of the above?

    I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t think things through.

    My analytical brain hadn’t thought about what would happen. What my actions would do to the rest of my family.

    What did you do? I did what I thought was right.

    Why did you do it? Because I didn’t want to see my family in pain… Blaming me for what happened. I could see it in their eyes that they did.

    But what if they didn’t blame you? You’ve just put them into the grieving process again.

   So, how are you going to fix it? I don’t know.

    If screaming would’ve helped, I would’ve done it. Screamed until my lungs hurt and my head pounded, but I knew it wouldn’t help. It would just send me bonkers even faster then doing nothing at all.

    There was a numbness that I’d been ignoring for a while, and it had nothing to do with how I was feeling inside. It seemed to be in my hand, my wrists, my elbow… My chest.

    It didn’t hurt, it was just very uncomfortable. And it seemed to be steadily getting worse the longer it went on.

    How do you fix this? No idea

    How do you make this right? Haven’t the foggiest.

    Do you want to fix this? I… I don’t know.

    The pain was becoming unbearable. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted everything to stop and go back to the way it was.

    For mom to be home with us, Grandpa and Grandma to be sitting on the porch watching the sunset. For dad to be home happy and smiling, not away all the time. For my family to get back to how it was.

    I wanted to be happy again. That’s all I wanted.

    And as the pain became to much to handle, I let myself slip into whatever unconsciousness my mind could conjure up; knowing that whatever this was, it was probably just an illusion or more punishment.

 


	8. The Simple Truth

** Chapter 8 **

** The Simple Truth **

 

** POV - Virgil **

 

    The journey to the hospital was a tense one. Grandma driving, her knuckles white on the wheel. The Terrible Two being very subdued, obviously knowing that something must be really wrong to have me still in tears.

    It was a little weird to have them sitting so quietly. I don’t actually think I’ve ever seen Gordon this still and not cracking some of his awful jokes. And Alan is always bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, waiting for the next “Adventure” as Gordon likes to call them.

    I’d only received a short text from Scoot, but I didn’t mind. If he thought he couldn’t talk to me without breaking down, it was fine by me to get a text.

    And even though I don’t think she’d admit it, I think Grandma’s favorite grandson is John. Always so quiet, well behaved, and happier with a book or on the roof stargazing.

    We always joke that I’m Switzerland when it comes to fights and arguments, but John is the peacemaker. The observer from the sidelines. The one to tell us to sort it out like adults, and not disturb him again.

    But all that had stopped after the accident.

    He started distancing himself from the rest of us, retreating into the safety of books and astronomy. We thought nothing of it at the time. Thought it was just a way of coping with what happened.

    It was only after a few weeks that we realized that something was wrong. When he woke up screaming in the middle of the night, trying to escape the nightmares that plagued him.

    After that, he started trying to keep himself awake, watching documentaries on anything and everything.

    If fights broke out now, he’d jump out of fright or run away and hide - wait out the storm and only come out when he was sure it was safe to do so.

    This wasn’t out John, not really. It was like a parasite had hijacked him and changed his personality. Like someone else was in his skin.

 

**~oOo~**

 

    As soon as we reached the hospital, we parked in the nearest parking space to the entrance as we could and - as soon as everybody was out of the car - ran through the doors and into the waiting room.

    Scott was sat on of the chairs, his head in his hands. He looked like he’d aged about ten years since I’d last seen him.

    Grandma moved quicker than I thought possible, and had Scott on his feet and into a hug before we could even get our legs to move.

    “They won’t tell me anything.” He sobbed into her shoulder, “They said I wasn’t a legal guardian.”

    “It’s alright. I’m sure they just don’t have any news to tell you yet.”

    “I met a girl though.”

    Gordon, probably trying to make light of this, started to chuckle.

    “Now is not the time to be trying to charm women, Scotty.”

    If looks could kill, our part fish brother would’ve been dead where he stood. The look Grandma was giving him was enough to make a grown man cower in fear.

    “Continue, Scott.”

    He took a deep breath.

    “She said that John would probably be taken to her ward once he was out of recovery. That she’d find out what she could for me."

    “How can you be sure that she is actually going to help?”

    “If it’s a girl, you should already know why.” Gordon tried to joke again, but Grandma gave him another withering glare, “Sorry. Continue.”

    “Because… Because she reminded me of John.”

    That stunned everyone to silence, even Gordon who had looked like he wanted to try and make another joke.

    John was the type of person you could talk to about anything, and he’d sit and listen even of he was bored out of his mind.

    “Fair enough.” I said, “But do you even know her name, or are you just going to call her ‘she’ all the time?”

    He looked embarrassed.

    “Uh…” He rubbed the back of his neck, “No, I didn’t ask. But she might be the Jane Doe that Greg was talking about in the back of the ambo on the way here. He said that she wouldn’t tell anybody her name.”

    “But how can you be sure that this is her?”

    “Because she said something about me coming in with ‘some friends of hers’ when she was talking to me.”

    “The EMT’s?”

    Scott nodded, before starting to stare at his hands.

   “I just want to know that everything’s okay.” He sobbed, “I want to know that my little brother is alright.”

   We all swarmed forwards and enveloped him into a hug, except Grandma – who marched up to the desk and started shouting at the poor woman who just happened to be in the wrong place and the wrong time.

   “I want to know what happened to my grandson.”

    The poor receptionist looked a little shell shocked at having this ‘old’ lady march up to the desk, and demanding something that she might not have been able to do or might not know what is going on.

    “What’s… What’s his name?” She stuttered, obviously scared and obviously trying to remain calm.

    “John Tracy.”

    “Let’s see…” She muttered, typing his name into the hospital database, “He’s out of surgery and in recovery.”

    I breathed a sigh of relief. John was alive.

    “And when will we be able to see him?”

    “A doctor will be out in a while to talk to you.” She answered, "He’ll be able to answer all of your questions.”

    Well, at least that was something. It was more then we had a few minutes ago, but less then we wanted to hear.

    What I wanted to hear, was that John was going to make a full recovery and be able to come home with us in the next few days. My gut was telling me that this was not going to happen, no matter how much I wanted it.

    And as we waited for the next few minutes, we were all thinking of what the doctor was going to tell us.

    Finally, about ten minutes after being told that somebody was going to see us, the doctor finally came through a set of double doors and made a beeline for us.

    “Are you the Tracy family?” He asked when he got closer to us.

    Grandma stood up, closely followed by Scott.

    “Yes, that’s us.”

    “Could we go somewhere a… a bit more private?”

    She looked around at all of us. To Gordon who was trying to keep Alan occupied the best he could, to me as I desperately tried to concentrate on the drawing I was working one, and finally to Scott who looked like he might crumple at any second.

    “Only if my other grandsons can come too.”

    He nodded, and I knew that we weren’t going to be getting John back home for a long time.

 


	9. Blue Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott get's his ass handed to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long wait. Wi-Fi problems and stuff. I'll post a lot of chapters today.

** Chapter 9 **

** Blue Monday **

****

****

** POV – Scott **

    The rest of the day and night had passed in a bit of a blur. The doctor had told us what had happened during the surgery, - in which John’s heart had stopped twice before they were able to get him stabilized, and he was in a medically induced coma for now - we’d tried calling dad again, and we slept in the hospital.

    I refused to go to school, opting to stay in the waiting room while Grandma took the others home to get showered and ready for their day. She said that she’d bring my laptop and books to finish up my work here.

    Nothing was going to make me leave, even if I had a test that would determine my grade for the semester. I wasn’t going to leave my brother alone incase anything else happened while all of us were away.

    “He’ll be okay, you know.”

    It was the same voice as yesterday and, as that voice had done the previous day, it pulled me out of my thoughts.

    She looked the same, albeit looking very tired, having damp hair and different clothes on - having a grey, “I’m on the Ninja diet” t-shirt with a turtle eating pizza on it, and a set of hospital pyjamas pants on.

    “Hello, again.”

    “Good morning.” She said, holding something out for me, “I thought you could do with some of this.”

    In her hands was a sandwich, a bottle of water and an apple. A very thoughtful gesture and anything had to be better then Grandma’s cooking, but I felt like if I ate anything, I might throw it right back up.

    “Thank you, but… I’m not really that hungry.” I told her, looking back at the floor.

    If I had been looking up, I would’ve seen the smile fall from her face and her eyes narrow. Probably not the best thing to say to somebody.

    “Fine then, don’t eat.” She almost shouted, putting the food next to me, “Starve, but just think of your brother.”

    “How do you think we got to this point?” I yelled, standing up, “I got to this point by thinking about him, and about how worried I am about what he did, and will he pull through this.”

    “But that doesn’t give you the right to stop looking after yourself.” She retorted, balling her hands into fists, “How do you think he’ll feel when he see’s you looking like you were close to death?”

    That drew me up short. How would he feel if he saw me like that? Would he feel guilty? Or would he feel better if I looked the same as him?

    “Cause I can tell you that he won’t be proud of that.” She continued on her little rant, “You’re not the first person I’ve seen do that to themselves, and you won’t be the last.”

    “That wasn’t…”

    She cut me off. She wasn’t done with her speech, and she wasn’t going to let me interrupt her.

    “I’ve been here for five months, had seven suicide attempts in that time, and seen a hell of a lot of people blaming themselves for what their relative did. None of them liked seeing their loved ones like that."

    Seven attempts! And that was just while in the hospital. What had happened to her, to make her want to do that to herself? To her family?

    But she finally seemed to be at the end of her little… tantrum, if you could call it that, before she started to cry.

    “No, no. Please don’t cry.” I tried to comfort her, “I didn’t mean to make you upset. I didn’t mean what I said.”

    The only bad thing about this - well not the only bad thing about this situation, but the highest on my list - was that I couldn’t hug her. If she was Jane ‘Greenie’ Doe, then it would do more harm then good to hug her.

    “Then what did you mean?”

    I was trying really hard to ignore the hospital personnel, that were arriving, and the curious onlookers.

    “I meant that I wasn’t hungry at this point in time.” I said slowly, “I should’ve thought more carefully about what I was saying.”

    She didn’t say anything, but she did start to wipe her eyes of the tears that had fallen.

    “Thank you, for the food. I will eat it a bit later.” I told her, “How about you sit down for a few minutes, calm down a bit, and we can talk.”

    Again, she didn’t say anything, but she took a few steps forward and sat down on the blue couch that I had occupied for the past day.

    “Okay. First off, I’m sorry for yelling at you. I shouldn’t have done it, and it was wrong of me to do it.”

    It took her a couple of seconds to answer me, or make any movement whatsoever. It was so disconcerting how much she acted like John.

    “I forgive you.”

    A sigh of relief. At least she didn’t hate me enough to not forgive me.

    “Just try and see it from his perspective.” She continued, “He’s just tried to take his life. He might have conflicting feelings about it. What do you think those conflicting emotions are going to settle on when John see’s you? Cause right now, you look like you need a shower, a good night’s sleep, and some hot food.”

    “What do you mean ‘conflicting emotions’?”

    The look she gave me was one you might get if you'd just asked the question in a foreign language.

    “He’s not going to know what to think.” She said matter of factly, “He might be angry that it didn’t work, or he might be glad it didn’t. His emotions about what had happened, might be in conflict with each other. To want to take your life you have to be in a dark place to begin with."

    That was a fair point, and something that I hadn’t considered. What would John’s emotions be like?

    He thought it was better for him to die, instead of talk about what was going on inside his head.

    She ran her hand through the mass of her drying, ginger hair, before she stood up.

    “Well, it’s my time to leave you here.” She told me, as she started to walk towards the double doors that led to the wards, “I’ll see you soon."

     “Hang on.” I called after her, and waited for her to turn around, “What… Will you…”

    I couldn’t get out what I wanted to say.

    “I’ll look after him in the ward, if that’s what you’re trying to get out.” She smiled, “And I will keep you in the loop. He’ll probably be taken out of the coma later today, and moved to the ward when he’s awake.”

    “Thank you.”

    And with that, she turned back around again and walked through the doors.

 

**~oOo~**

 

    When Grandma came back, she found me still sitting on the couch; eating the sandwich that Jane got me.

    “I was going to ask if you wanted anything to eat, but it looks like you got something for yourself.” She commented as she sat down next to me.

    “Nah.” I replied, taking another bite from the ham sandwich, “Jane gave this to me when she visited this morning.”

    “Well that was nice of her. I hope you thanked her.”

    I smiled a little. Grandma taught us about manners and cleaning up after ourselves. Some of us were better at it than others.

    “I did, Grandma. We had a talk, she told me she’d look after John when he got to the ward, and she left.” I told her, “She also reckons that John will go to the ward later today.”

    “Well, that’s good. It means he’s getting better.” She said, giving me an awkward one-armed hug.

    And that is how we stayed, only getting up to get something to eat or go to the bathroom, until she had to leave to get my brothers.


	10. Stitches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John realizes that his attempt didn't work, and he meets a new friend

Chapter 10

Stitches

 

POV - John

    Everything hurt, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be. It didn’t feel like it had before. It was like everything had been dulled.

    I wouldn’t call it a pleasant feeling, but it didn’t make me want to scream out in pain.

    And there was this incessant beeping. It was steady, which is a good thing I guess, but it was very annoying.

    _Why won’t it stop?_ I thought, opening my eyes; only to shut them again as I was blinded by the lights overhead.

    Groaning, I tried to open them again; only to get the blinding light again. Only this time, it didn’t hurt my eyes as much as it had the first time.

    There’s nothing worse then being blind… Well, there is, but at this moment I didn’t care about the other worse things. I just didn’t like being blind.

    It was a couple more minutes of rapid blinking before I was finally able to open my eyes without light spots appearing in my vision.

    _This defiantly isn’t anything like where I was before_ , was the tough that came to mind when I was able to focus on my surrounding. Overhead lights, white walls and a thing blue blanket covering me.

    “Ah, you’re awake.” Somebody said from somewhere.

    _Awake? Why would they be worried if I was awake or not?_ I thought, a little confused. I was in some sort of other world, wasn’t I?

    “You’ve had a lot of people worried about you.” This person continued, “They’ll be glad to know you’re awake.”

    It seemed as though my voice had decided not to co-operate with what my brain wanted it to do. I wanted to ask where I was, and why wasn’t it my mom who came to see me.

    _Work, dammit. Work!_

__ “I’ll go and get a doctor. They can check you over.”

    There were footsteps that got fainter the further they got from me, but the beeping remained constant.

    That seemed to be the only constant thing to stay with me. First mom dies, then dad seemed to be absent all of the time, Alan mad at me… I don’t think I need to continue, do I?

    A few moments later the footsteps started returning. Hallelujah! Finally, someone who can tell me what the hell is going on.

    “How are you feeling, John? You had us very worried when you came in yesterday.” They asked, leaning over me and using a penlight to check my eyes.

    I groaned again, and instinctively snapped my eyes shut. What is it with people and lights today? Is it gang up on poor John day?

    “Pupils equal and reactive.”

    “Where’s my mom?” My voice was really croaky, and it actually kind of hurt to get those three words out.

     The brown haired doctor, and the peroxide blond nurse, looked a little surprised at my sudden question, but they should surely know where she could be. But then again... shouldn’t she already be here, waiting at my bedside.

    He consulted his tablet for a few seconds before he answered my question, a look of mild shock on his face.

    “You’re mother died in January…”

    “I know that.” I interrupted him, “But isn’t she here? I would’ve thought when her son died; she would’ve been here. To welcome him to the afterlife.”

    Concern was then etched into the doctors’ features.

    “You didn’t die, John.” He told me, “You’re alive, and you’re in Kansas General; recovering from a drugs overdose and self-inflicted wrist wounds.”

    That couldn’t be right. I died. I was in some sort of purgatory when I first came to. Shouldn’t they have come up with their answer by now?

    But then again, why would they need a doctor to check on me if I was dead?

    The only plausible answer was that I had been unsuccessful in what I had attempted to do. That I was still alive.

    And with that realization hitting me like a ton of bricks, I turned onto my side and started to cry.

 

**~oOo~**

 

    I don’t know how long I stayed like that – absentmindedly playing with the white cotton bandages that covered my wrists – but I must have started to dose, because the next thing I knew, I was being wheeled to somewhere else.

    They had tried talking to me and asking questions, but I hadn’t wanted to answer them, so I didn’t. Eventually, they’d just left me alone; but kept someone by my side the whole time. I could feel their presence, even if I couldn’t see them.

    And I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to see anybody. I didn’t want to acknowledge that they were there at all.

    It was just all so confusing for me. I didn’t know what I wanted. On one hand, I was happy to be alive, but on the other, I wanted to be dead – in the land of the free, with mom and Grandpa.

All I wanted was for my family to go back to the way we were… To be happy, whole and carefree. I wanted to have family dinners again.

    Why did this situation have to be so foreign to me? Give me a physics question and I could answer it easily, a fact about the stars, space or anything related tot that was a specialty of mine, and a maths problem – no trouble at all. But dealing with emotions is not something that I am used to.

    So I just continued to lay on my side – still fiddling with the bandages – as they continued to wheel me around in one of the hospital beds.

    Where were they taking me? If I were being discharged - which was unlikely - they would probably just have dumped me in a wheelchair and taken me to whoever was here to collect me.

    No. They were obviously moving me to a different ward. Somewhere where I was somebody else’s problem. Typical. Always dumping me on someone else.

    I huffed out a breath. It had always been the same, even when we were younger. Being the odd one out, I was always left at the sidelines when we played contact sports, or I was left to my own devices and read with mom.

    My bed suddenly slowed. I had been so engrossed in my own thoughts that I hadn’t realized that we had almost got to our desired destination.

    Sitting up, I came to the realization that this ward looked exactly the same as the one I’d just been moved from. The only difference being lots of empty beds - only a few of them were actually occupied.

    As soon as the bed came to a standstill, the two nurses and the doctor left; handing a file to somebody sitting at a desk.

    _That’s it?_ I thought, _You’re just leaving me here, with no explanation of what’s going on or what’s going to happen to me?_

    “Don’t worry. They normally leave the introductions to me.”

    Turning my head to the side, I saw a ginger girl standing beside the bed. She was probably just under or over five feet, and she couldn’t be any older than me; maybe just a little younger, but not by much.

But what really made me stare wasn’t that she was wearing a very baggy NASA t-shirt... It was the fact that her ice blue eyes seemed to stand out on her pale face, only because of the purplish, bruise like bags under them.

    “They call me Jane.” She continued, “And welcome to the SWW, the Suicide Watch Ward - your home away from home, until they see you fit to leave."


	11. The Ward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They visit the SWW for the first time.

** Chapter 11 **

** The Ward **

****

 

** POV - Virgil **

 

    It had been an agonizing day for all of us, but more so for the Terrible Two and I. At least Scott and Grandma were at the hospital and would here any news as soon as it happened. If anything happened while I was away, I had to wait.

    Thankfully nothing had happened, but it hadn’t helped my feeling of unease throughout the day. And it hadn’t helped me answer the questions, asked by the teachers, about my two older brothers.

    I hadn’t lied exactly, but I hadn’t told the whole truth; deciding just to tell them that John was ill and Scott was looking after him until he got better. In my eyes, John didn’t need the teachers judging him on top of everything else he was dealing with.

    They just said that they hoped he felt better soon, and that they would do a make-up pack for the both of them; not that John needed one of those packs, but he’d probably get bored otherwise.

    And now it was almost another agonizing wait for the news on my next up brother.

    Apparently Scott’s mystery girl, Jane, had told him that John would most likely be woken up later today, and that they only put him in the induced coma to give his wounds time to heal. All we had to do now was wait for somebody to come tell us he was awake.

    Hopefully that wouldn’t be too much longer. I really hate the waiting aspect, even at home. While at a hospital it was worse, only because it was waiting for news on a loved one.

    When I’d left this morning, Scott had been as well as could be expected - given the circumstances - but now he just seemed a little lost. He had this distant look in his eyes, which he only ever got when he was deep in thought.

    “You okay, Scotty? You know, apart from the obvious.” I asked.

    He looked at me with a little confusion. He must have thought that he had been alone till I asked him the question.

    “I guess I’m okay.” He shrugged, “Just thinking about something that’s been bothering me.”

    “And what’s that?”

    “Something that Jane mentioned.” He answered, “She said how she’s tried to take her life seven time since she arrived at this hospital, five months ago. It just got me thinking about her family.”

    That got me thinking.

    “What if she doesn’t have one?” I blurted out, “Surely she wouldn’t have stayed in the hospital, for five months, if she had one. Maybe she calls herself Jane Doe as a means of nobody finding that out.”

    A dawning realization passed across his face. This was probably something that he hadn’t thought of.

    “You might be right, Virg.”

    Just then, a doctor walked through a set of double doors and started making his way towards us. He wasn’t the same one as yesterday, but if he was giving us information, I didn’t care.

    As soon as he got close enough to us for Gordon and Alan to realize that he was coming to us, they nearly vaulted across the back of the couch and practically launched themselves at the poor man.

    “Are you here to tell us about Johnny?"

    The poor doctor looked a little shocked at having two blond children launching themselves at him, with one of them wearing a very questionable, very loud Hawaiian shirt.

    “Uh… Yes, I am.” He said slowly, “That is if this Johnny, is John Tracy.”

    We all nodded. I don’t think his second sentence was aimed at Grandma, Scott and I, but more at Gordon and Alan.

    “He’s awake, and he’s been moved out of recovery and to the ward he shall be staying in.”

    I let out the breath I’d been holding. And it sounded like Scott had done the same thing as me.

   He wasn’t out of the wood yet, but he was getting there.

 

**~oOo~**

 

   Having been told that we wouldn’t be allowed to see John until tomorrow – after breakfast – we made the executive decision to stay in a hotel for the night.

   The doctor had asked to speak to Grandma in private. At first she told him that anything concerning our brother could be told in front of us, but he said it wasn’t something that we would want to hear. She came back looking like she might cry, but told us that it wasn’t anything that concerned us.

    And let’s just say that the night was not the best; what with the Terrible Two jumping on the beds, singing ‘Johnny’s going to be okay’ over and over again, and Scott close to murdering them.

    The only release from their constant noise was when Grandma told them to go to bed or suffer the consequences. That shut them up. But even the quiet didn’t help any of us sleep very well.

    So when we woke, none of us were very well rested; but it had been nice to have a hot shower and something better than the stuff the hospital called food.

    We looked like a bunch of weirdo’s when we walked to the hospital. Scott was shouting about how I should be going to school, Grandma was trying to rein in our youngest brothers, and they were trying to play ‘Escape the Monsters.’ The monsters just happened to be us.

    If dad had been there, they wouldn’t have been acting up as much. But if dad were here, none of this would’ve happened. We had to deal with something that none of should have to.

    By the time all these thoughts had gone through my head, we had arrived at the entrance of the hospital.

    We’d been told we couldn’t see him until after breakfast, so we had come while they were eating. I’d been told I could visit for half an hour, and then I had to go to school, along with Gordon and Alan.

    It wasn’t much, but at least it was something. And I could see John with my own eyes; see for myself that he was alive and breathing, because the last time I saw him, he wasn’t in the best of conditions.

    And then we were in to see him.

    But the ward wasn’t like any other ward I’d ever seen. It was white with probably about fifteen beds - only about seven of which were occupied - and just the bare minimums when it came to storage.

    The only bed that seemed to be unlike the others was one at the very end of the ward, and it appeared to be empty. That one had flowers, a colourful blanket and a picture of Orion’s Nebula; I only knew that because of John.

    That is when we saw John, sitting on the bed opposite the colourful one. But he wasn’t alone.

    Sitting on the edge of his bed was a ginger girl, but John seemed to be deep in conversation with her; a giant smile on his face. He was also holding something pink in his hands.

    Scott seemed to recognize this girl though, even if he couldn’t see her face.

    “Good morning, Scott.” She said without looking up, “How are you today? I hope you’re better than yesterday.”

    John’s face fell when he looked up, and fear crept into his eyes. Then he did some funny movements with his hands, before the girl did some different ones.

    “Morning Jane.” Scott greeted, walking closer to our brother’s bed, “I’ve had better nights of sleep, but a bed is better than a hospital couch.”

    “Well, these hospital beds aren’t much better.” She commented, sliding off of the bed, “You know where I’ll be John. You’ll do fine.”

    She gave a two fingered salute to our oldest brother, a reassuring smile to our bed bound brother, and a small wave to the rest of us before she retreated to he colourful bed. Well, at least now I know who that one belongs to.

    But our space case brother couldn’t take his eyes off her. It was like he was afraid to look at us. Ashamed, even.

    “Hey, Jay.” Scott said, taking up Jane’s spot on the edge of the bed and pointing at John’s hands, “What you got there?”

    Instead of staying still like he had with Jane, he shifted uncomfortably on the bed and kept his head down.

    Gordon and Alan also took up a space on John’s bed, but again he looked uncomfortable about it.

    I decided it was probably best to stay on the sidelines, and just stood beside his bed, while Grandma took the seat next to his bed.

    “Dianthus caryophyllus.” John muttered, staring at the pink thing in his hand.

    “Bless you.” Both Gordon and Alan said at the same time.

    “Honestly boys.” Grandma huffed, “It’s a pink carnation. Haven’t I taught you anything? John just gave you the species, didn’t you?”

    His nod was almost non-existent. Blink and you’d miss it.

    “It’s native to the Mediterranean region, however the exact range is unknown due to the extensive cultivation of the last two thousand years.” He rambled, still not looking up

    “That’s very interesting. Is there anything else about this particular species?” I asked. I wasn’t really interested, but it was nice to hear him ramble.

    “The formal name, dianthus, comes from the Greek for ‘Heavenly flower’, or the flower of Jove.” He continued, “Pink ones have the most historical and symbolic significance.”

    “And what significance is that?”

    He was starting to look very uncomfortable, but he looked up; but he didn’t look at us. I followed his gaze, and he was looking at Jane’s bed; and she seemed to be talking to one of the EMT’s from yesterday, with a bag of something in front of her.

    Seeing that she probably wasn’t going to stop her conversation, he most likely decided that he had to continue.

    “According to a Christian legend, they first appeared on Earth as Jesus carried the Cross. As the Virgin Mary shed tears at Jesus’ plight, carnations sprang up from where her tears fell; thus the pink carnation became a symbol of a mother’s undying love.” He finished, “Jane gave it to me.”

    “That was nice of her.” Scott commented, looking over at her too.

   _If she knew that when she gave it to him,_ I thought, _then she is very smart. Possibly as smart as John._

    The Terrible Two also looked at her. From the looks in their eyes, they were probably debating whether or not to go and jump on her bed and ask who she was.

    “She’s really pretty.” Alan finally said.

    “She reminds me of mom.” Gordon piped up.

   That took both Scott and I by surprise. Well, Scott actually looked like he’d been blindsided and had the wind knocked out of him.

    “Mom was blond with green eyes.” I said, a little shocked, “How could she possibly remind you of her?”

    Gordon shrugged.

    “Her kindness, smartness, and her ability to make John smile.” He folded his arms over his chest, “It takes a smart person to get Johnny to open up.”

    Fair enough. Only mom was able to get John to come out of his shell, and I hadn’t been able to find anybody, in the past few months, who was able to get him to smile. Not a genuine smile.

    We spent a little while talking, until Grandma told us that it was time to leave for school - which John looked a little relived at. It had been a long time since he’d been asked so many questions and been so crowded.

    “Do we have to Grandma?” Gordon asked. He didn’t want to leave John’s side, and to be honest, neither did I.

    “You promised half an hour, and then you would go to school. Don’t you argue with me Gordon Cooper Tracy.”

    When our full names were used, we knew there was no point in arguing. We all knew that resistance would be futile.

    “See you later, Space boy. I’ll bring you lots of work to do, don’t worry. You won’t be getting bored anytime soon.”

    That gave me a little smile. It was progress, even if it isn’t much.

    John did stiffen however, when Gordon and Alan both threw their arms round his neck and started hugging him, but he did endure it.

    The four of us go up and started making our way out of the room, leaving Scott perched on the edge of his bed. It just so happened that it was the same time as Jane’s visitor was leaving, so he was following us out.

    “I’m glad to see John is doing better then he was on Sunday.” He commented when we were out of earshot of the ward.

    “Yeah.” I replied, “Thanks for saving him. I haven’t had a chance to say that to you. I haven’t actually seen you since you left with him."

    “It my job, but you’re welcome.” He said, handing me a piece of paper, “Jane also asked me to give you this. Her exact words being ‘the black haired boy, because John tells me he’s the musical one’. Sometimes she doesn’t make sense, but you do get used to her cryptic messages after a while.”

    “Virg is getting a phone number.” Gordon sang, skipping down the hall with Alan in tow.

    The EMT shook his head, smiling.

    “Well, I better get going. I’m suppose to be on duty in half an hour.” And he walked off down the hall, hands in his pockets.

    I shook my head and unfolded the piece of paper.

    Inside was, what I assumed to be, the name of a song and one line of writing, in a messy, but neat, scrawl.

    _Learn this for tomorrow, and be prepared to perform it after you’ve finished your day of schooling. Just the piano. I can do the rest._


	12. One Call Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More random facts, an argument, and some feels

** Chapter 12 **

** One Call Away **

****

****

** POV - Scott **

 

    I spent the rest of the day with John, apart from when I had to leave for lunch and dinner. Though he wasn’t really interested in talking to me, when Jane came over and offered us sweets, he took one and became a bit more open.

    It wasn’t unusual for John not to talk, but what I wasn’t used to how scared he looked and acted. His refusal to look up at me, but how he would for Jane.

    So when John had to go and see one of the councilors at midday, I went to speak to Jane. I wanted to know how she was doing it.

    “How are you doing it?” I asked. It was probably a little bit too vague of a question, even for somebody on John’s level of genius.

    “How am I doing what?” She replied, not looking up from the piece of paper she was doodling on.

    “You’ve managed to get him out of his shell in less than a day.” I told her, “We’ve been trying to do that for years.”

    She looked up from her doodle, which really wasn’t one. It was a biro drawing of a pocket watch that could rival one of Virgil’s drawings.

    “Tell me, when was the last time any of you were able to connect to him on an intellectual level? I’m not saying you’re not smart, but the rest of you seem more brawny and outgoing then John.”

    That was true. Every one of us, except John, was brawny. We were athletic. John was lithe and unimposing. The only thing about him that was imposing was his height; and he seemed to get taller everyday.

    “We’ve uh… We’ve never been able to compete with John intellectually. It’s never fun when we do quizzes. John always wins.”

    “Try again, fail again… Fail better.”

    “What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

    “It’s a quote by Samuel Beckett.” She told me, picking a flower out of the bouquet she had on the bedside table, “Get the staff to make up a quiz. We can do three against three.”

    “And what good will that do?”

    She sighed, rolling the flower - a yellow rose - between her fingers.

    “It’ll show him that you’re trying to get involved in something he likes. But in the meantime, give him this.” She handed me the flower.

    “I’m guessing this has a meaning.”

    “Yes. It means friendship, joy and good health. In the eighteenth century, the elusive yellow rose was discovered growing wild in the Middle East.” She rambled on like John had earlier, "They are also the perfect way to toast friends, life spirits and send a general wish for well-being.”

    By this time, John was being led back into the room. And I knew that that was my queue to leave Jane, and return to my brother.

    “Hey… Don’t steal my flower.” She shouted, giving me a slight wink before trying to grab at the flower.

    Thankfully I got what she was playing at, and held it just out of her reach.

    “Sorry.” I smiled, “I’m giving it to Johnny.”

    I mouthed ‘thank you’ to her, before turning and heading over to my little brother, who was smiling at me.

 

**~oOo~**

 

    The rest of the day passed without much incident. He chuckled a little when Alan decided to kick Virgil in the leg, because he was ‘taking up too much room on the bed’. Grandma probably would’ve told him off had John not found it funny.

    But we did have to leave at eight. I didn’t want to, but I knew there would be no use in arguing; so we left for the hotel.

    Virgil had retreated to the bed he had claimed as his own, and started studying sheet music on hit holo-tablet.

    “You composing there, Virg?” I asked, walking over to him and sitting on the edge of the bed.

    “No. I’m learning something for…” He stopped mid-sentence, his cheeks reddening a little.

    “You don’t have to tell me if you want to keep it secret.” I told him, “I’m not going to force you to do that.”

    He smiled at me, looking very relived about that.

    “Thanks, Scotty.”

    “Anytime, little brother.” I smiled, patting him on the shoulder and standing up.

    I checked on Gordon and Alan who, for once, were quietly playing a board game on another bed; before going off to find Grandma.

    It didn’t take long to find her. We might have temporarily acquired two of the biggest connecting rooms in this place, but Grandma was sitting on one of the couches; clutching something to her chest.

    “You okay, Grandma?”

    She looked up at me, tears in her eyes.

    “How far must he have fallen?” She asked, putting a picture frame on the coffee table, “And how did we not notice?”

    The picture in the frame was that of ten-year-old John. He had on his too big NASA shirt, a baseball cap, and was standing in front of a Space exhibit at a museum in New York.

    He was so happy. We’d gone to the aquarium for Gordon, art gallery for Virgil, and the Air Force base of me; and not once did he complain. We complained when it got to doing something he wanted to do, which was unfair looking back on it.

    “Very far, Grandma.” I replied, sitting next to her, “He blames himself for what happened to mom and Grandpa."

    “But it’s not his fault. Surely he should know that.”

    “I don’t know if he does.” I shrugged, “He thinks it’s his fault because he asked to stay out longer; and if he hadn’t done that, they might not have died.”

    My phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out, and saw that it was dad.

    _He’s finally getting back to us,_ I thought, _it’s about damn time he did that._

“Hey, dad.” I said when I picked up, “Nice of you to get back so quickly.”

    I knew it was wrong of me to be sarcastic towards him, but it had taken him over two days - and six calls - to either check his phone, or call to make sure everything was fine.

    “I’ve been very busy, Scott.” He told me, "This is the first time I’ve checked my phone in the past week.”

    Typical. Always busy with work, and not worrying about anybody else.

    He seems to forget that it wasn’t only him affected by what happened to mom. He might have lost his wife, but we lost our mom.

    “And do you think it’s been sunshine and daisy’s for us?” I asked angrily, “Cause it hasn’t, and it still isn’t.”

    “What’s been going on, on your end?”

    “Don’t you listen to you’re messages?”

    “I saw I had some missed calls from you guys, and just called you back.” He told me.

    "John tried to kill himself on Sunday, dad.” I scoffed, clenching my free hand into a first, “He’s in the hospital, on the Suicide Watch Ward. And we’ve been dealing with it, while you’ve been god knows where.”

    There was silence on his end of the phone, but I didn’t let that stop me.

    “You know, it’s like we lost both our parents, because you’re never around. You’ve left us alone for too long, and now we have to deal with the consequences.”

    And with that, I hung up.

 

**~oOo~**

 

    As much as I wanted to stay by John’s side the next day, he forced me to go to school; much to my protest.

    I wanted this day to be over. I couldn’t stand being away from my little brother for so long. The only good thing about this situation was the fact that it made me realize that we had to stick together, and be there for each other.

    And I all but ran out of my last class of the day when the bell rang. I couldn’t wait to get back to John’s side, and take some of Jane’s advice.

    We had to wait for Virgil. He came running out of the art department about five minutes after the final bell rung.

    “Budge up, Gords.” He panted, opening the door and chucking his bag in the trunk, “Sorry for being late. Had to clean up my table.”

    When the door had been opened, Gordon moved into the middle seat. Older siblings always got the window seat.

    “It’s okay, Virg.” I told him, “We haven’t been waiting that long.”

    He chuckled a little at that.

    “Yeah, and you’re not at all agitated about having to wait, even if it wasn’t for that long.” He said sarcastically.

    “How could you possibly know that?”

    “Your leg, Scooter.” He pointed at it the best he could given the space, “You always bounce it when you get impatient.”

    Damn he was good. I was hoping that he wouldn’t notice that. I’d been trying really hard not to do it, but I’d failed brilliantly.

    “Seatbelt on, Virgil.” Grandma said, “You too, Gordon. Didn’t think you could hide that from me did you?"

    Gordon, who’d been trying to hide the fact he wasn’t wearing his, admitted defeat and put his belt back on.

    You could never get anything past her. Sometimes it was like she had eyes in the back of her head; and she’d catch you with your hand in the cookie jar without even having to look. Not like anybody wanted her cookies anyway, but it was worth trying all the same.

    But the trip back to the hospital was quiet, and the only movement was Grandma’s hands on the wheel, and Virgil’s hands ghosting over non-existent piano keys.

    Virgil seemed really nervous about something. I hadn’t seen him act this way in a long time. Not since his Grade Six piano exam when mom was still alive.

    However, I wasn’t going to ask him what was wrong. When he was ready to confide in someone, he’d talk. No point trying to force him into doing it.

    So when we arrived back at the hospital, taken the elevator to the right floor, and walked onto the ward, it was a big surprise to find it empty. The only sign that anybody had been hearer was the unmade bed and the flowers that still sat on Jane’s bedside table.

    “Where is everyone?” Alan asked, a little tremor in his voice, “What’s happened to them?”

    “Come here, Allie.” I said, crouching down and opening up my arms for him to run into, before standing back up again, “I don’t know where everyone is, but I’m sure if anything had happened, or was wrong; the hospital would’ve called us.”

    Alan had his head buried in my shoulder, and I could feel him starting to shake as he began to cry.

    When Alan got this way, which wasn’t very often now, nothing could get him to calm down or stop crying. Well, I thought nothing could calm him down.

    “Hey there, sweetie.” Our familiar, mysterious ginger friend said, “Everything’s okay. Come on, I’ll take you to where everyone is waiting.”

    He looked up into her smiling face. She might’ve been a bit paler then she was yesterday, but other than that she looked fine.

    “Everyone’s alright? Really?”

    “Really, really.” She confirmed, “And I can’t start the show without my maestro, can I?”

    Virgil went beet red, and Alan and Gordon started laughing. I admit, I also smiled at the colour his face was going.

    “Tell you what, and only privileged people get this.” Alan was listening intently, waiting with bated breath for her next sentence, “How about I give you a piggyback ride to the activity hall? And maybe you can be on my team for tonight’s quiz.”

    Alan nodded enthusiastically and relinquished his hold on me, holding his arms towards Jane; who took him in her arms and carefully maneuvered him onto her back, and started walking back from where I assumed she’d come from.

    The walk wasn’t very long, and Jane was keeping my youngest brother amused and tear free, but it was still nerve wracking to say the least. And it wouldn’t stop my unease until I saw that John was okay.

    But John was okay. I saw that for myself when we rounded the corner and saw him sitting at the table, trying his best not to fiddle with his bandage covered wrists.

    Jane, again, carefully put Alan back on his own feet, and he immediately took off running towards John.

    “Guess what, Johnny? Guess what?”

    John looked a little bewildered, but didn’t flinch away like he had been, when Alan finally reached him.

    “What, Allie?”

    “Jane said that Virgil was a master, and that she couldn’t start the show without him.”

    “She said that he was a maestro, not a master.”

    “Yeah, that. What is a master-row?”

    We all laughed at that, even John who hadn’t laughed properly in months.

    And she all but dragged Virgil to the electric keyboard. It was nothing like the sleek black one we had at home; but this was a hospital, not a music store.

    He tried to protest, but she stopped him before he could even get a sentence out. She was on a mission, and nobody was going to stop her.

    So Virgil sat himself in front of the battered keyboard, and waited to be told what to do next.

    “Ready?” I heard her ask.

    Virgil gave a very shaky nod. He looked terrified, but I could tell he wasn’t going to give up. And by the look on Jane’s face, she wasn’t going to let him.

     _“I’m only one call away. I’ll be there to save the day. Superman got nothing on me. I’m only one call away.”_

I was in awe. Even knowing nothing about music, I could tell that it was good. Who knew that a voice like that could come out of her? Certainly not me.

    The way her voice blended with the piano was amazing.

    She kept singing, skipping round to all the patients that we’re in the room and bringing smiles to their faces. Even by the end of the song, John was grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

    _He’s getting better. Slowly, but surely._


	13. Insomnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sleepless night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I have had some spelling mistakes, but they're not major. And they don't change or compromise the outcome of the story, so I'm not going to correct them.
> 
> Part of this chapter was inspired by Shared Spaces, while John was in the hospital.

** Chapter 13 **

** Insomnia **

****

****

** POV – John **

 

    The day had been fun. A two-hour quiz, musical interludes by Virgil, and Jane joining the Terrible Two in telling jokes.

    One of them had been the staff telling the two resident geniuses that we weren’t allowed on the same team. Jane had then grabbed hold of a laughing Alan and Gordon and yelled, “No. You can’t split us up.” I’d found it funny.

    Teams had been matched accordingly. Jane had been with Alan and Scott, I’d been with Gordon and Val – one of the ward boys - and Virgil was with David and Mark – the two other remaining ward boys, as two had gone home earlier in the day.

    Jane’s team had won, by a minuscule two points. Never again would I dismiss petroleum jelly and fire making, or Christina Granville and Vesper. But nobody needed that fire-making trick anymore, not when we had warming cubes.

    But by the time visiting hours were over, I didn’t think that I’d smiled so much. The ‘Quiz Master’, as we had to call him, was Nurse Jack, and he started cracking jokes in-between questions.

    It had been easy to fall asleep. The hard thing was staying that way. I kept having nightmares about my family abandoning me, and leaving me to rot here – laughing at me for being weak.

    So when the nightmares woke me up this time, I was expecting to be the only person awake. What I wasn’t expecting was someone else to be up in the middle of the night.

    Sitting in a chair staring out window, was Jane; knees to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs, and her chin resting on the tops of her knees.

    As quietly as I could, I slipped out of bed and went to join her; taking one of the visitor chairs with me.

    “Hey.” I said, sitting down, “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

    She looked up at me, tears welling in her blue eyes.

    “Shouldn’t you?” She asked, going back to looking out of the window, “Besides, it’s awfully hard to see the stars during the day.”

    “I’ll give you that one. It is very difficult to see them in the daylight.” I told her, before becoming more serious, “But what’s the matter?”

    The tears started rolling down her face.

    To me, it was wrong to see her crying. The girl, who hours ago, was smiling and joking with my younger brothers. Who was singing about how she was a friend and to not be scared.

    “I’ve just been thinking.” She replied, wiping the tears from her cheeks, “The mind can be a cruel place.”

    “True.”

    “So what has you up at this time of day?” She asked, wiping her eyes again and stretching out her legs.

    “Nightmares. I’ve been getting them almost every night for the past six months, but the only difference is whether I wake up screaming or not.” I answered, “Apart from wanting to see the stars, what has you awake?”

    She stared at her hands for a few seconds, and started muttering under her breath about fingers.

    “I just haven’t been sleeping very well.” She muttered, “And my anxiety is getting worse because of it. Plus the nightmares don’t really help with getting to sleep.”

    “So I’m not the only one to get nightmares then. That’s nice to know.”

    “Most people who pass through here get them.” She told me, “There’s only a few people who come though here that don’t get them. I call those people ‘the lucky ones’.”

    We sat in a comfortable silence for a couple of minutes, before we actually spoke to each other again. But it wasn’t me who broke that quiet.

    “I miss it.”

    “Miss what?”

    “Laying under the stars, with the breeze blowing on my face. They don’t let me out at night, incase I do something to harm myself.”

    “Seriously? That must be awful.”

    She nodded in confirmation.

   “How long have you been here? I don’t think I’ve ever asked, but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

   “It’s alright.” She answered, running a hand through her hair, “I’ve been here for almost six months.”

   I’d only been here three or four days, and I already missed climbing out onto the roof to stargaze. I couldn’t imagine not going out for six months.

   But that was going to change.

   “How can you get to the roof from here?” I asked, already formulating a plan in my head.

    It took a couple of seconds for her to answer, but even then she sounded a little confused.

    “Why?”

    “Because we’re going to go stargazing.”

 

**~oOo~**

 

    We’d formulated a plan on how to escape, and not get caught; only evading capture by a few seconds.

    But it was so worth it.

    The air was cool and crisp, but it was nice to be outside again; feeling the night air on my face, and the breeze ruffling Jane’s hair slightly.

    And she looked at peace. It was like all the stress of being in the ward just melted away. It seemed as though this is all she needed to feel free and at ease.

    “Thanks, John.” She said, sinking to the ground and crossing her legs, “I think this is the best thing anybody has ever done for me.”

    “What about your parents?” I asked, sitting down next to her, “Surely they have given you things."

    “They died when I was three. Car accident. I was in the car with them, but I can’t really remember much.”

    “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose my parents so young.”

    She gave me the smallest of smiles.

    “It happened a long time ago, and things get better as time goes on; but it’s always with you. The could have’s and all the opportunities.”

    Hearing from someone who has been through something like me didn’t make me feel better. That even though it would get better in the future, the hurt will always be with you.

    And all the missed opportunities? My mom’s missed opportunities. All her kids graduating, science fairs, music recitals, swim competitions… Everything that we will ever do or want to do will be missed.

    “So who have you been staying with all this time then?”

    To say she became uncomfortable at that question would be a massive understatement. She began to bounce her leg on her foot and tried to hide her face - which she had also started to play with.

    “You don’t have to answer that.” I said quickly, “I was only wondering, but I don’t want to cause you distress.”

    Even though this didn’t help with getting her to show her face again, it did help with stopping the leg bouncing.

    _Something really bad must have happened to her,_ I thought, _to get that kind of reaction out of her._

“I won’t answer that question. Not yet anyway.” Her voice was thick with unshed tears.

    That is when I did something that normally takes me months to build up the courage to do. I hugged her.

    Yes, it wasn’t a traditional hug - only a side hug - and she did stiffen at the beginning, but after a couple of minutes, it felt almost natural when she laid her head on my shoulder.

    I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but it was relaxing to sit like this. It was like I was watching the stars with mom.

    Jane did, however, calm down. The unshed tears had fallen down her face, but they hadn’t lasted long, and her breathing evened out.

    It took me a few minutes to realize that she had actually fallen asleep, and was using my shoulder as her pillow. I didn’t mind one bit though. As long as she was happy.

    And that is how we stayed; the only difference being that I lowered myself into a laying position, and moved Jane’s body for it to be more comfortable for her as well.

    That is how I fell asleep, with Jane’s head resting on my chest and my arms wrapped around her torso.

 


	14. Runaway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know how to summarise this chapter.

** Chapter 14 **

** Runaway **

****

****

** POV – Scott **

 

    Grandma was frantic when she roused us all. I’d never seen her like this in all my years.

    “What’s wrong, Grandma?” I asked, pulling a shirt over my head, “Has dad been on the phone again?”

    He’d tried ringing twice yesterday, but none of us would answer any of his calls. We didn’t want to talk to him.

    “The hospital called. John’s gone missing. They only found out this morning when he didn’t show up for breakfast. All he left was a note, and that is cryptic in itself.”

    “What did the note say?”

    She looked as though she didn’t want to answer that question, but she also knew she had to tell me what was going on.

    “It said, ‘let’s play’.”

 

 **~oOo~**  

 

    In my haste to get to the hospital, I forgot that I wasn’t wearing any trousers; so I had sprinted almost the entire journey in only my boxers, a baggy sleep shirt, and a pair of hastily put on sneakers.

    So you can imagine the stares I got while running down the street, and the ones I got when I ran through the hospital door, shouting about my brother. There were some of shock, some of amusement, and some of those who didn’t know whether to laugh or not.

    “Where the hell is my brother?”

    “Please, Mr. Tracy.” One of the staff implored, “Calm down. You’re no use to us like this.”

    “Calm down?” I asked incredulously, “You’ve lost my brother, and you want me to calm down?”

    “Mr. Tracy…"

    “It’s Scott. Mr. Tracy is my father.”

    She took a deep breath.

   “Scott, in order to help your brother, you have to calm down.” She told me, “Now, who is the closest person to John?”

    Before all of this happened, I probably would’ve said that I was the closest person to him, being his big brother and all. But now, the only person I could think of was…

    “Jane. She’s connected to him more in these past few days then any of us have, and she’s actually got him to talk.”

    The nurse looked a little uncomfortable when I said Jane’s name.

    “What?” I asked, “Don’t tell me you talked to her and she can’t tell you, or doesn’t know where he is.”

    “It would appear that she has gone missing with him.”

    Great. Two smart minds, and they’ve decided to do a disappearing act together. And no matter how high their IQ is, they are still Grade A idiots.

    “Have to asked the others on the ward? Surely they might know something.”

    By this time, we had started walking towards where John and Jane should be.

    _When I get my hands on them,_ I thought, _full big brother mode is going to make an appearance._

“None of them were awake.” She relied, “Rounds were made at twelve, two and four. They were asleep at two, but gone by four.”

    “But why didn’t you call us sooner?”

    “Jane tends to go walk a bouts, as you’ve seen. She’s normally back before breakfast, and we thought John might’ve gone with her, as he hasn’t been sleeping very well. When they didn’t show, we called your Grandma.”

    I know very well about Jane’s ability to just pop up out of thin air, and if John had a nightmare, he’d have done anything to get his mind off that. It was a reasonable thing to think they’d gone off together.

    We reached the ward at that point, but it felt weird being here with nobody to visit.

    “Grandma said that there was a note left.”

    “Yes, there was.” She said, handing me a piece of lined paper from the notebook Jane was drawing in yesterday, “We aren’t sure what it means, so we’re hoping one of you does."

    On the paper was ‘Let’s play’ in a hand I didn’t recognize, some dots around the writing, and a sketch of a flower or plant of some kind, but I didn’t know which one.

    Were these clues on where they’d gone? Cause if they were, they weren’t very helpful ones. A better clue would’ve been to actually put where they had gone.

    “Any ideas?”

    “None.” I answered, “But there has to be some significance to what they’ve put, otherwise they wouldn’t have left anything.”

    “That’s what we were thinking.”

    From the corner of my eye, I caught some movement; so I turned my head a little to see what it was.

    Two men were moving a couple of chairs from the window. Chairs that shouldn’t have been there at all, but by the beds.

    “The chairs were found by the window?” I asked, looking back at the female nurse.

    “Yes.”

    “Were they there at the check at two?”

    “No.”

    “But they were at four?”

    “Yes.”

    Then they must’ve been put there in-between checks.

    I walked up to where the chairs had been, and looked out of the window. Something here had to be a clue as to where they were.

    There was nothing.

    But they weren’t looking at it in the day. They would’ve been looking through the window when it was dark.

    “Why does Jane have the bed she has?" I asked, making the nurse nearly jump out of her skin.

    “What?”

    “There are plenty of other beds, so why does she have that exact one?”

    “She asked for that one in her second week.”

    “But why?”

    “Because she wanted to see the stars before she went to sleep. She couldn’t see them from any other place but there.”

    That is when I took off running.

 

**~oOo~**

 

    If I had had a camera with me, I would’ve taken a picture of the sight that greeted me on the roof.

    Laying entwined together, was John and Jane; sleeping like a couple might. They looked so cute together, but big brother had to tell them off for running away - even if it was only to the roof.

    “Come on, you two.” I said, clapping my hands together, “Up and at ‘em. You’ve spent too long up here.”

    The reaction was almost instantaneous, and it was funny just how they reacted as well.

    John jerked bolt upright, his head turning side to side; as if to see who woke him up, and Jane jumped to her feet and turned around; her hands balled up into fists, as if ready to fight.

    When they saw me, they looked a little sheepish, and Jane lowered her arms.

    “Back to the ward, you two.” I told them, pointing towards the door that led back to the hospital, “We’ll be having words when we get there.”

    They started walking back the way we’d come, but they looked like a pair of cats who had their tails between their legs.

    And so the walk back to the ward was a quiet one. Neither of them even tried to make eye contact with me. I guess they knew that they were in trouble, and wanted as much forgiveness as possible.

    In all honesty, I probably wasn’t going to go to hard on them, but they had to know that it wasn’t okay to do what they did. People were really worried about them.

    When we arrived back at the ward, the rest of the family had arrived. And Grandma was not best pleased with the little disappearing act my brother had pulled.

    Greg had also arrived, clad in his dark green EMT uniform and a scowl on his face. He was the complete opposite of the smiling man who’d sat chatting to Jane yesterday morning.

    “See Grandma.” Gordon said, jumping up and down before running at Jane, and launching himself at her, “I told you Jane would find him, and she did.”

    Had she not reacted as quickly as she did, both her and Gordon would’ve been on a heap on the floor. She caught him and lifted him onto her hip; just like she had with Alan yesterday before she’d shifted him onto her back.

    “Hey fish.” She greeted him, trying to suppress a yawn and failing, “How did you sleep?”

    “I slept okay.” He beamed, hanging onto her shoulders, “Virg was a bit miffed that you won the quiz, but I think it was more the fact that Scotty was on the team. Was it you who found Johnny?”

    She didn’t answer right away but when she did, her words were slow, and carefully thought out.

    “In a manner of speaking.”

    Before any of us could answer, Greg spoke up.

    “You ran away, that’s what you mean. And you roped John into doing it with you.”

    “I didn’t…”

    “Then why did I get a call from a very frantic nurse, telling me that they couldn’t find you? The last time you did this…”

    “I’m well aware of what happened last time.” She interrupted, narrowing her eyes, “I didn’t do anything if that’s what you’re worried about.”

    “Let’s see then.”

    The look she gave him made me want to take a couple steps back from her, but she put Gordon down and complied with what he wanted. First she lifted her shirt, and I was shocked by what I saw.

    All over her stomach were old burn scars – most likely from a fire poker or cigarette – and some faded, and angry, red lines; crisscrossed all over her pale figure. I could even see her ribs.

    She dropped her shirt and went onto unwrapping the bandages that covered her wrists; and they were almost as bad as her stomach.

    More angry, and harsh, red lines peppered her forearms; including two long, raised ones that still had stitches in them.

    “Is that all, or would you like me to strip to my undies and do a full body cavity search?” She asked, her voice almost venomous.

    Had the situation been different, what she said would’ve been funny, but the anger in her voice was nothing like I’d ever heard come out of her mouth before.

    And all I could think was;  _what the hell has happened to her, to make her want to do that to herself?_

“No.” He replied, “But can you blame me? Every time you run away, you come back with new scars.”

    She was about to answer back, when John butted into their argument.

    “It’s my fault.” He said, looking up for the first time, “It was my idea to go out onto the roof, not Jane’s. Blame me, not her.”

    All of us stood in shock for a few seconds. We all knew that he liked to go out onto the roof when he couldn’t sleep, but we never thought that he would try and pull something like that while in the hospital.

    “Jane was upset and couldn’t sleep. She talked about the stars, and I thought about going up to the roof to see them properly, instead of through a glass window.”

    It felt like an age before anybody actually said anything, when in actual fact; it had only been a couple of minutes. But when somebody did finally speak, it was Jane who did it.

    “How about you two.” She pointed at Gordon and Alan, “Come with John and I, and we can see if we can hunt down a board game to play?”

    They nodded like a couple of bobble heads, and Gordon climbed onto her back when she bent down to pick Alan up.

    They’d started to walk towards Jane’s bed, when John turned round to face us all.

    “Just to let you know.” He started, looking at each one of us, “She looked happy when we were out there, and it wasn’t an act.”

    With that, he turned round and began to make his way to where our two youngest siblings and Jane were.


	15. The Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeff finally arrives.

** Chapter 15 **

** The Arrival **

****

****

** POV – Virgil **

 

    Nobody said anything else about what had happened. Instead we just sat playing Monopoly on Jane’s bed; Gordon on her lap, Alan on John’s, and the rest of us either perched on the bed or on the visitor chairs.

    Gordon had wanted to play as a squid so, as there wasn’t one; Jane had drawn a quick sketch of one in a top hat and monocle. She named him Sir Squid, and they played as him.

    So four games in, and a lot of cheating later, with John and Alan leading with two games, Jane and Gordon with one, and game four still in play, we weren’t expecting anything major to happen again.

    But in the middle of the game, Jane suddenly looked towards the door; a look of concern on her face.

    None of us noticed it until John raised his right hand and, using his index finger, wagged it slightly at her.

    She didn’t do anything but hold her hand up to him, as if silencing him before he had even said anything.

    Carefully, she deposited Gordon from her lap to the bed and, making sure not to hit me in the process, slid from her spot; before padding to the double doors at the end of the ward.

    The other residents of the ward also sensed something was wrong, as they all stopped what they were doing to watch Jane as she walked. Nobody asked any questions, or even moved from their positions.

    It was eerie how quiet everyone got. No rustle of a book page being turned, no talking, and no movement of any kind. The only noise in the room was the soft pad of Jane’s feet, and the breathing of everyone in the room.

    When she pushed open the doors, we could hear some muffled shouts coming from somewhere nearby, but when the door closed, the noise got a little clearer. The person shouting had obviously made their way into the corridor.

    “What’s going on?” I asked nobody in particular.

    “Someone she doesn’t know is out there.” David replied, “She knows all the sounds of the ward, so she knows when something’s off.”

    Suddenly, there was a loud whistle that made everyone in the room jump the metaphorical five-foot in the air.

    “But how does she know?”

    “It’s like when you’re at home.” Said one of the boys, who’s name I couldn’t remember, “You get used to all the sounds after a while, so she can sense when something changes.”

    That made sense. I know that when John first started getting his nightmares, Scott would get up and sit with him. When asked, he said he could just tell that something was wrong.

    But when the nightmares became more than once a night, and on a daily basis; he stopped going in. That’s when John decided that he would not sleep for a long as he could.

    A shout from beyond the door jolted me from my thoughts.

    “You’re not going into the ward.”

    That was defiantly Jane. Even though she tried to hide her British accent, when she got annoyed or angry it became more prominent.

    “And what authority do you have to stop me from going in?”

    There was no mistaking that voice, even if I hadn’t heard in person for about two months. And that voice caused John’s face, if it was possible, to go even paler then it already was.

    “I’m the longest serving patient of this ward.” Jane retorted, “No visitor gets into the ward without my say so.”

    I could almost imagine Jane standing there with her arms folded, staring down her opponent with a look of ’go on, try. I dare you’ written over her features.

    “And my son is in there. I think my authority trumps yours.”

    “Nobodies authority trumps mine. I’ve helped every person who’s come through these door in the last five and a half months.”

    It was probably not the best idea to get on her bad side after how angry she got this morning, but I wasn’t going to go out there – putting myself in the firing line – to tell him to shut up. He was going to face the full wrath of a pissed off twelve year old.

    “I don’t know who…”

    “Who I think I am?” She finished, laughing slightly, “I know exactly who I am. It’s just everyone else who has no idea.”

    “Look…”

    “No! You look.” She was on a roll, “He’s been in here for five days, and to my knowledge, you haven’t called once. From what I heard, you didn’t even know about it until two days ago. What were you doing?”

    That was met by silence. The sign of wanting to ignore the question, or just pretend it hadn’t been asked.

    “If he wants to see you, then I shall have no problem letting you in. However, if he doesn’t, then you shall wait patiently or leave."

    Again, it was met by silence.

    _What?_ I thought, _has he suddenly just lost his voice or something?_

The doors opened, and Jane walked through. She was pulling slightly at the hem of her top, and we’d learnt early on that she only did that when she was really nervous or anxious.

    “You know who’s outside, don’t you?” She asked when she reached the bed and saw John’s face.

    All he did was nod.

    To be honest, I don’t think he could’ve spoken even if he wanted to. His face was almost chalk white, and he looked as if he might throw up.

    “I’ll go and tell him then.”

    As she went to turn round, the doors flung open, and in marched our dad; in a suit and tie.

    “Out.” Jane said, standing in the way of his view to John.

    “I won’t take orders from you.” He told her, continuing to walk towards where we were sitting, “I want to see my son.”

    “Well he doesn’t want to see you.” She spoke a little louder, “And I don’t know if your other sons want to see you either. If they had, they would’ve run to you as soon as you walked in."

    It was true. Had we been happy that he was here, we would’ve run up to him and John wouldn’t have been looking so unwell.

    Instead, none of us had moved towards him. The only movement from any of us, was John grabbing hold of Jane’s hand and lacing his fingers through hers.

    Our father continues to walk towards us, and Jane started to stiffen the closer he got to us.

    “Leave.” Her voice wavered slightly, and from the looks of it John squeezed her hand.

    “Not until I talk to John.”

    He got closer, and the fear in Jane’s eyes was evident. The rest of her was as calm as she could be, but you could tell how scared she was.

    “Jane said to leave.”

    I had to force myself to look away from my father, and to Scott; who’d jumped to his feet. I’d never heard him take this tone with our dad.

    “Scott…”

    “She said to leave, dad.” Scott said again, moving to stand by her side, “We can talk about this later, but at the moment; you’re causing distress to those who reside here.”

    For a couple of moments, it looked like he didn’t know what to do. But the longer he stood there, the paler Jane’s face became.

    “When, later?” He asked, “You haven’t been answering my calls.”

    “Because you’ve been an ignorant asshole, that’s why. You didn’t even check your messages before calling, and then asked what was wrong.”

    “So when are we going to talk about this like civilized people?”

    Scott reached into his pocket. We’d bought him a change of clothes so he didn’t have to stay in his underwear for the rest of the day, and have to walk back to the hotel like that.

    He pulled out one of the keycards we’d been given, handed it to dad, and gave him the room number.

    “Wait there.” He told him, “We’ll be back later, and then we can talk about it. Now is not the time or the place to do it.”

    I was fully expecting him to try and argue that, but all he did was try and peak a glance at John; who was being blocked by a slightly green looking Jane.

    When he realized that he wasn’t going to be seeing his star loving son, he turned round and walked out of the ward.

    “Are you okay?” Scott asked Jane as soon as the double doors swung shut, “You don’t look too good.”

    She shook her head slightly, before she let go of John’s hand and bolted from the room.

 


	16. My Way Home Is Through You

** Chapter 16 **

** My Way Home is Through You. **

****

****

** POV - John **

 

    According to Grandma, she’d found Jane on the floor of the bathroom hugging one of the toilet bowls; retching and crying her eyes out.

    She’d come back looking a little better, but she still had some fear present in her eyes; however she wouldn’t explain why she looked so scared.

    I figured that she wasn’t going to explain while my younger brothers were around; and for the moment, she just wanted to make sure they had some fun. To take their minds off all the drama that had happened over the course of the day.

    So we continued to play Monopoly, and then went on to play Ludo, Uno, and Cluedo. Every game we played seemed to have some form of cheating go on, and brought with it a lot of laughs.

    We didn’t comment on her blotchy face or red eyes, or how she seemed to keep retreating into her own head.

    _Is this how I’ve been acting towards my family?_ I asked myself, _is this what I’ve been like for the past six months?_

On one such occasion of her retreating into her head, she almost jumped out of her skin when Scott gently touched her arm.

    “It’s your go.” Scott said softly, “And don’t worry. Dad can be scary, but he won’t be coming back here unless John wants to see him or until he’s calmed down.”

    “Thanks.” She put down a red three onto the pile of cards, “But I’m not worried about your dad. I just remembered something I didn’t want to think about.”

    Virgil put down a red switch, handing control back to Jane.

    “Then what are you worried about?”

    “Nothing you need to worry about.” She put down another card, “But at the moment, I change the colour to yellow, and you need to pick up some cards.”

    Scott looked down, and was close to swearing when he saw what card Jane had put down. It was a pick up four cards, which Gordon and Alan found very amusing, and it meant that he had to miss a go as well.

    He looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh along with the Terrible Two, or to cry about what she’d just done.

    “That’s just cruel.” Scott pouted.

    “All is fair in love and war.” She retorted, smiling slightly as Scott picked up his cards.

    “This isn’t even war.”

    “It doesn’t mean an actual war.” I told him, putting down a yellow four, “The quote is usually uttered when someone is trying to justify bad behaviour.”

    The look on Scott’s face was funny. He was staring at me, and looked a bit like a fish as he kept opening and closing his mouth.

     “Where does it even come from?” Virgil asked, as Gordon put down another switch card passing play back to me.

    “It’s found in the poet John Lyly’s novel ‘Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit’ published in 1579.” Jane recited, almost like she was reading it from a book, “The novel recounts the romantic adventures of a wealthy, attractive young man, and includes the quote ‘the rules of fair play do not apply in love and war.’"

    “But the first known appearance of the quote worded ‘all is fair in love and war’ is in English author Francis Edward Smedley’s 1850 novel ‘Frank Fairleigh’, which is about the life of a schoolboy.” I finished, putting down my next card.

    Jane tried to stifle a laugh, but she failed. She burst out laughing at the betrayed look on Scott’s face.

    “You have to be kidding me.” He yelled indignantly, “You’re ganging up on me, aren’t you?"

    “Not at all, Scotty.” I chuckled, “I change to green, and pick up your four cards."

    He started muttering under his breath about how we were conspiring against him, and that somehow we must be cheating.

    “Don’t get all sulky on us, Scotty.” I joked, as everyone started laughing at the pouty look on his face.

    “I’m not sulking.”

 

**~oOo~**

 

    I won’t say that he sulked for the rest of the day, but he did hold a little bit of a grudge when he found out that I’d been helping Jane for most of the games we played. He didn’t know that we were using sign language.

    Even though he didn’t know how we were doing it exactly, he still knew that we were somehow communicating with each other without speaking.

    Had we been really obvious with our signing, he would’ve known. But we were sneaky with how we were doing it - making it look like we were thinking for red, rubbing our arm for green, holding the cards in a specific way for numbers and so on. It was fun to get one up on your brothers.

    “I will find out how you’re doing it.” Scott said jokily when it was time for him to leave, “I won’t rest until I know.”

    “Good luck, Scooter.” Jane told him, as he bent down to give her a hug, “Not that you aren’t smart, but I don’t think you’ll ever get it.”

    “You’ll see. I’ll prove you wrong.”

    “And no running off you two.” Grandma reminded us, giving us a knowing look, “I don’t think my heart could take another scare like that.”

    Jane gave a little chuckle at that.

    “From what I’ve seen and heard about you, I highly doubt that.” Jane smiled, before pointing to my brothers, “You also have to put up with those four. I think they’d cause you more trouble.”

    “Too true.” Grandma replied, pulling her into a hug, “Not all of them are trying to give me a heart attack though… Only Gordon and Alan are.”

    She laughed at that statement, before she pulled away form Grandma and started to creep up on the Terrible Two.

    As I watched her yell ‘boo’ behind them - and them scream like pre-pubescent schoolgirls before laughing - Grandma swooped me into a hug as well.

    “You take good care of yourself.” She told me.

    Although she couldn’t see it, I smiled at that. Only she would say something like that to somebody in the hospital; where you’d be taken care of, no matter what happened.

    “You’re going to be seeing me again tomorrow, Grandma.” I mumbled, patting her on the back slightly, “How much trouble could I possibly get into in only a few short hours?”

    I meant it to be a rhetorical question, but my Grandma actually answered the question posed.

    “In the early hours of this morning, you and Jane did a disappearance act worthy of Lord Lucan. You scared most of the people in here with it.”

    “Apart from that.” I muttered, my cheeks going bright red.

    She gave me a big smile when she pulled away.

    “And look after Jane as well. She may seem like she doesn’t need anybody and can handle herself, but you didn’t see her earlier.”  Grandma said, looking me dead in the eyes, “Jane needs somebody, like you do."

    "Somebody like I do? What the hell does that mean?”

    “What she needs is a friend.” Grandma told me, “And you need somebody you don’t have to dumb yourself down for.”

    It didn’t make sense at first, but then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

    The only people I could call friends were my brothers. Everybody else I talked too either bullied me, or I had to stop being myself. Or as Grandma called it ‘dumb myself down’ to other people’s intellectual level.

    Even though I didn’t want to accept it, Grandma was right. We both needed friends, and to be able to be ourselves.

 

 **~oOo~**  

 

    After they all left - and everybody else was asleep - I slipped out of bed and padded across to Jane’s bed.

    I was expecting her to be asleep, but she wasn’t. She was laid on her side, staring out of the window; her blue eyes more like a light grey in what little light there was.

    “Hey.” I said, perching on the side of her bed.

    “Hey.” She replied, not moving one bit, “What’s eating at you?”

    “Um…” I have to admit; I was a little confused by that.

    Much to my surprise, she chuckled a little at my answer.

    “What I mean is, what’s bothering you?” She clarified, “I’ve heard some people say about something eating at you, and I kind of stole it.”

    “Oh.” Knowing what it meant, made me feel a little better, “I guess there’s a lot of things ‘eating at me’ then.”

    “Like what?”

    “Everything. I know that it seems like a stupid answer, but it’s true.”

    She didn’t laugh at my answer. She didn’t even ask me to clarify. All she did was sit up and pat me on the back.

    “It’s not a stupid answer. I think it’s a very rational answer.” She told me, “It happens to a lot of people. You just have too many things floating around to quantify which one to talk about first.”

    I smiled at that. Maybe Grandma was right about needing a friend as smart as me.

    “So a question not about me then.” I said, turning my head to look at her, “What had you so freaked out this afternoon? You were fine, and then you weren’t. So what happened?”

    Her hand suddenly retracted from patting me on the back.

    “I don’t think…”

    “That it’s any of my business? That I have no right to know?” I interrupted, “I want to know how I can help you. You’ve helped so many people, but you need somebody to understand and to listen to you.”

    She looked a little conflicted. On one hand, it looked like she didn’t want to discuss it, but on the other, knew that she had to discuss it at some point.

    “It was just a memory. I normally get them, but today it just effected me differently to how it normally does. That’s all.”

    “Alright. I’ll take that answer for now, but you can’t avoid it forever.” I told her, “But can you do me one favour? I just want to know your name.”

    Apprehensive was a word you could use for the look that passed across Jane’s features. Conflicted could be another.

    “I haven’t said my name in over a year.”

    “Well, I want to know it. I can’t just keep on calling you Jane.”

    “You want to know my name, then you have to tell me a secret about yourself. Something that nobody else knows about.”

    Now that was just a little unfair. I mean, I know I’m asking her for something that even the hospital doesn’t know, but still.

    “I’m a hacker.” I told her, “My family has no idea, and if I was ever caught doing it… I’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble.”

    “Then never use your own computer without having some very good firewalls, and try doing it on public Wi-Fi.” She stated matter of factly, “That way they can’t catch you. Or just try not to do it for too long, otherwise they’ll be able to get your location.”

    For a few moments, I didn’t know how to respond, or even how to talk. How did she know what to do? And how did she know the best ways to avoid getting caught?

    “How…”

    “Do I know? Easy.” She smiled, “Because I used to do the same thing. I used to hack into the FBI database though. I helped them solve some of their cold cases without them even knowing.”

    I had to be dreaming. This girl was too like me for her to be anything other than a figment of my imagination.

    “Okay. I’ve told you a secret about myself.” I said, shifting my position on the bed, “I expect you to keep your end of the bargain.”

    The look that flashed across her face was one of regret. Could she be starting to hate the promise she’d made?

    “I’ll sign it. But you have to promise to never say it out loud. If anybody knows… They’ll send me back.”

    I nodded. I could tell that she wasn’t just saying it for the hell of it. She was genuinely scared about what might happen if somebody found out what her real name was.

    She took a deep breath before she starting signing. Her right index finger using her left hand like a pad.

    A curved line from her middle finger to her thumb, a touch on the tip of her ring finger, index finger and thumb on right hand touching the top and bottom of her left index, a touch to her middle finger, and then another to her index finger.

    “That’s a cool name.” I smiled, “Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me.”

    “Thank you for telling me one of your secrets. Had you not been brave enough to do that, then I wouldn’t have told you my name.”

    “Too true.”

    “But you want to know something else.”

    It wasn’t posed as a question, but rather a matter of fact. How did she always know when I had something on my mind?

    “Yes, I do.”

    “So what is it?”

    “I’m curious about how they deem us safe to go home. I know David is going home in a couple of days.”

    A sad smile passed across her lips.

    “The councilor has to deem you fit. They watch how you interact with your family, and how you process what’s happened.”

    “Processed what’s happened?”

    “How quickly you come to terms with what you did. Whether you regret it, and whether you’re thinking about doing it again.”

    “So why haven’t you been allowed to go home yet?”

    She took another deep breath.

    “I don’t think they’re ever going to let me leave.” She admitted, another sad smile pulling at the corners of her lips, “I don’t have a family, they don’t know my name, and every time they’ve thought about releasing me; I’ve attempted again.”

    “But you’ve helped so many people who’ve come through here. You’ve helped me accept what I did, and how it’s okay to be different.”

    “That’s what I do. I can’t help myself, so I help others.”

    And that is when I realized that she was like an angel, fallen from grace. Always helping others, but not sure how to help herself.

    Maybe she just needed a little help finding her way home.

 


	17. Song of a Caged Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains some pretty horrible things. Just fair warning.

** Chapter 17 **

** Song of a Caged Bird **

** POV – Scott **

 

    Enough was enough. I was finally going to ask Jane what the hell had happened to her, and I wasn’t going to stop asking till I got a satisfactory answer. I was going to wait here for as long as it took.

    When I entered the ward, John was sitting on the edge of Jane’s bed; talking animatedly with her.

    Then she started laughing.

    “What’s so funny?” I asked when I got to them.

    They looked up at me. The looks on their faces were ones of shock, almost as if they weren’t expecting me just yet.

    “John told me a joke.”

    “And what kind of joke was that.”

    “How many existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb?” John asked, an innocent look in his eyes.

    “I have no idea.” I told them honestly, “What is the answer?”

    “Two.” Jane answered, “One to change the light bulb, and one to observe how it symbolizes an incandescent beacon of subjectivity in a netherworld of cosmic nothingness.”

    “Right.” I said, but I really had no idea what it meant, and I wasn’t going to ask them to explain it cause my brain would probably explode.

    “So what has you here without anybody else, Scotty?”

    “Grandma’s dropping everybody at school, and then she has to meet with one of the teachers at Gordon’s school.” I told them, “He thought it funny to superglue Freddie Moore, and bum, to his chair.”

    Jane looked as though she wanted to start laughing, but was containing it. I did have to admit that what he’d done was kinda funny.

    “Has he said why he did it?” She asked.

    “Knowing Gordon, he probably didn’t need one.” John replied, having a harder time trying to control his laughter.

    “He said that Freddie was being an ass to him. Says he complaining about how fish wasn’t getting punished for being late.”

    “A lot of people are asses.” Jane muttered.

    And John just lost it.

    He started laughing. A no holds barred, full on belly laugh, with tears rolling down his cheeks.

    “So how do you know that, Jane?” My voice coming across angrier then I was wanting or expecting.

    She looked at me like I might’ve just lost my mind. It was almost like she didn’t know how to react.

    “What do you mean?”

    “Exactly what I just said.” I told her, “How do you know that a lot of people are asses?”

    “From experience.”

    “And what experience might that be?”

    The look in her eyes might’ve fried me, or killed me, if looks could kill. It was scarier then one of Grandma’s death stares.

    “None of your...”

    “It is my business.” I interrupted, “You claim to be helping my brother, but we don’t know anything about you; apart from that you’re smart.”

    “I like it that way.”

    “And why’s that?”

    “SO NOBODY CAN HURT ME!” She yelled, tears in her eyes, “So that I won’t be found. And so that I can keep myself safe.”

    That bought me up short. The idea that she was keeping these secrets – like her name – for her own safety didn’t even crosses my mind.

    “Tell me.” I said, my voice having lost the anger and irritation from before, “How is it safer in here? And how are you keeping yourself safe when you’ve tried taking your own life seven times since they brought you in?”

    The tears started rolling down her cheeks, and her breathing started to become rapid. She was working herself up into a panic.

    “You need to calm down.” John told her, grabbing her shoulders, “Jane, look at me, okay? Right in the eyes.”

    It took a few seconds for her to actually comprehend what John had said, while I just stood in complete shock at the edge of the bed; watching my little brother trying to calm down her down.

    I wished I could do something to help, but as I watched John talk to Jane - and her grab his shoulders as well - I wondered how many times this had happened to him for him to know what to do.

    And as much as I wished I could do something… I couldn’t. All I could do was stare at them, as John started whispering words of support, encouragement and telling her to breath with him.

    But as I watched him trying to calm her down, I wasn’t expecting him to do what he did next.

    He pressed his lips to hers.

    Although it wasn’t for very long, only a few seconds at most before he pulled back, but it certainly did what it was suppose to.

    “You good?” John asked her, as she brought her knees to her chest and put her head between them.

    She gave him a thumbs up as she gasped for breath.

    No matter how much I want to say that I understood this situation, I couldn’t say that. What had just happened had me thoroughly confused, and wondering what the hell just happened?

    “John… What the hell?” I questioned when I finally found my voice, “What the hell was that all about?”

    “I helped.” He answered innocently, rubbing between Jane’s shoulders, “It’s a perfectly normal thing to do.”

    “And you decided to help by kissing her?”

    “Not what it looks like.”

    “Then what is it then? If it has a perfectly reasonable answer, why did you kiss her? I saw you do it, so don’t try to deny it.”

    But it wasn’t john who answered me. It was Jane.

    “Breathing reset.” She wheezed.

    “What?”

    She took a deep breath in, looked up, and stretched out her legs. John just continued to rub between her shoulders.

    “I call it a breathing reset.” She said, “It’s when you hold your breath to help get your breathing under control. I guess you can get control by putting an oxygen mask on, but John’s method worked just as well as any.”

    I looked from Jane, to my little brother. He was refusing to look me in the eyes, but at least he wasn’t hanging his head.

    “And how did you know it would work, John?” I asked, shifting my gaze slightly to look at him.

    “I saw it on an episode of Teen Wolf.” He said sheepishly, “I remembered seeing it, and I just thought it may work to help get Jane’s panic attack under control.”

    “And it did.” She told him, smiling, “It’s always useful to remember random facts like that, cause you never know when they might come in useful.”

    That was a good piece of information to remember for potential needed use in the future.

    “Well panic attack or not, I still want to know why you acted the way you did yesterday, and why you think people will come for you if you reveal who you really are.”

    Her tear filled eyes looked like a plea for mercy… For me to not want to know about her past. But I guess the look in my eyes told her I wasn’t going to leave until I knew.

    “Fine.” She rubbed her eyes dry before she continued, “I was orphaned at the age of three, and put into foster care not long after.

    “I was fostered with a really nice man, Peter, who used to be in the army. He left after he was partially deafened by a bomb, and he wanted to have a fresh start… To have something good in his life.”

    New tears welled up in her eyes, threatening to fall whenever she so much as lost concentration or focus for even a second.

    “What happened to him?” I asked.

    “He was killed London while trying to stop a robbery that was happening. I held his hand while he died.”

    “Oh my God.” John muttered, “And how old were you when it happened?”

    “I was almost six. Found out after he died that he was planning on adopting me. He was the one that taught me how to sign.

    “Anyway, I was put back into the foster system again before I was placed in the hell hole that became my home till I ran away just before I turned ten.”

    _Hell hole?_ I thought, _how bad was this place?_

    But now was not the best time to ask that question, because I was pretty sure I was going to be told the answer as the story continued.

   “The family kidnapped me. They didn’t tell the foster people that they were moving to the States, and were going to be taking me with them. But that wasn’t the worst thing they did to me.

    “They beat me, broke my bones, burned me, cut and scarred me… I could deal with all of that. But they did something a hundred times worse in my eyes.

    “I… I uh…” The tears leaked from her eyes.

    I didn’t have to be told what else happened to know what had been done to her, and I didn’t want to hear, but knew I had to listen.

    “I was passed round from person to person, like a child might pass a doll to a friend. I wasn’t treated like a person… I was treated like a thing.”

    “Hang on.” John held up his hand, “Passed around?”

    “She was raped, John.” I told him, feeling the bile coming up my throat, “She was passed round a paedo ring.”

    Jane nodded before she continued.

    “Just over three years of being passed round, I made my escape. I stole some money from my tormentors, packed a bag of clothes and essentials, and made a break for it in the middle of the night.

    “It wasn’t easy on my own, but I had to get as far away as I could; and I traveled for just under a year before I made it to Kansas.

    “After I got here, I lived rough for about a year and a half, two years… Time moves differently when you’re living on the streets. It’s hard to tell how long you’ve been somewhere when you don’t even know what day it is.

    “Then we get to the beginning of this year. I was dying. I hadn’t had any food in about a week, and no water for about three days. And some boys found me in a shop doorway. They didn’t take any pity on me. They used me as a punch bag, and a kick ball. Every part of my body was covered in bruises.

    “I made my way to a place where I knew was the best place for seeing the stars, and tried to kill myself. I couldn’t take it anymore.

    “When I woke up, I thought I was dead. Turns out I was found by an old couple who called for help, and that I’d been in a coma for a week. Been here ever since."

    She brushed away the tears that had fallen during the telling her story. And I felt sorry for her. I understood why she didn’t want to tell us what happened, because if it’d happened to me; I wouldn’t have wanted to relive it.

    “Sorry.” She whispered, sliding off her bed, “I need to get out of here.”

    What happened next though, was something I wasn’t expecting.

    Jane brushed by me as she almost ran for the double doors. Not confusing at all. She wanted to have some time to herself. But John shouted something out that confused me slightly.

    “Jodie.” He called, immediately clapping his hands across his mouth.

    Ever so slowly, Jane turned round to face us. And then I realized that Jodie was her name, and the fear in her eyes was one I would never forget.

    And then all hell broke loose.

 


	18. Acceptance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Again, no idea how to summarise this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE - Jodie's birthday and name have been changed cause of another story I'm writing. She's the same character and I don't want people to get the two mixed up.

** Chapter 18 **

** Acceptance **

****

****

** POV – Virgil **

 

    It’s safe to say that Grandma was not happy when she picked me up, and we remained in silence till we reached the hospital.

    The meeting with Gordon’s teacher did not go well, and Grandma was not in a good mood because of it. Apparently this wasn’t the first time he’d tried something like this, but it was the first time he’d succeeded.

    From the look on her face, she was about to start tell him off, but she was cut off by some hysterical screaming and crying.

   I took it as a sign to start running, so I did; running down the hall, only to be greeted by the remaining boys on the ward sprinting towards the double doors.

   “What’s going on?” I asked, slipping as I rounded the corner.

   “No idea.” Was the reply, “We were playing Ludo, then the screaming starts. Just started running towards here.”

   In all honesty, it sounded like a kitten being beaten… Or like how Prim sounded when she was screaming at Katniss after she’d volunteered as tribute in The Hunger Games.

   The doors to the ward were opened, and the screaming just got louder. And the sight that greeted us was one I thought I’d never see.

    Scott was trying to hold onto a struggling Jane, while John was failing at his job of calming her down… But it didn’t look like she was going to be calming down anytime soon.

    Tears were streaming down her face, she was fighting against Scott’s grip, and a small trail of blood was running down both her wrists; dripping onto the floor. Her hysterical screams seeming to get louder the longer it went on.

    “LET GO OF ME!” She screamed, still trying to fight my oldest brothers steel grip on the tops of her arms, “They know who I am. I’m not safe anymore.”

    “We’ll protect you.” John said calmly, “I promise you, I won’t let anything happen to you as long as I’m around.”

    Wasn’t that a lyric from a Sweeney Todd song? Or at least a similar phrase to the lyric from the song ‘Not While I’m Around.’

    “They’ll take me back. I don’t want to go back.” Her voice seemed to rise even higher with each word, “That’s why I ran away.”

    Suddenly, I was pushed to the side by a couple of nurses who ran past me; one of them holding a syringe full of something.

    “Keep her still.” One of them instructed.

    “I’m trying.” Scott told them breathlessly, “Can’t you see that?”

    The second nurse started helping Scott keep Jane from moving around too much, which only worked a little bit.

    What had her so freaked out? She was fine when we left yesterday, and when we had our twenty-minute visit before school. She was even talking about how they were going to be taking her bandages off today.

    Nurse one, who was holding the syringe, then grabbed Jane’s hand and plunged the needle into the IV port still inserted into the back of it; and she started going limp almost immediately after the liquid was in her system.

    “What did you just give her?” John asked, pushing past the nurse who’d knocked him out of the way.

    “Versed.” He answered.

    The look on John’s face was one you never wanted to be on the receiving end of. He only ever used it when he was pissed off or angry.

    “Why the hell did you give her that? We could’ve calmed her down without having to use drugs, you do know that, right?”

    Scott’s grip on her arms did nothing to stop Jane’s legs from giving out, or help him in keeping her upright.

    Luckily, John was able to catch her before she hit the ground, and he knelt on the floor with her; pushing some loose hairs out of her face.

    She muttered something only he could hear, before he pulled her into a hug.

    “I promise you, I won’t let anything happen to you.” He whispered, rubbing her back, “They’ll have to go through me first.”

    “Why do I feel so sleepy?” I heard her murmur into his shoulder.

    “It’s the drugs they gave you. You’ll be out for a few hours. But I’m going stay with you the entire time. I’ll keep you safe."

    “Promise?” Her voice cracked.

    “Always.” He answered, tears running down his face, “Go to sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up."

    Jane laid her head on my immediate older brothers shoulder, and her breathing started to even out.

    There was a tug on the sleeve of my flannel shirt, and I looked down. Alan stood next to me, holding his favorite teddy.

    “What’s wrong with Jane? Why is she upset?” He asked, hugging the teddy close to his chest, “And why is Johnny angry?”

    “I don’t know Allie, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon.”

    When I looked back at my two older brothers and Jane, I saw that they had lifted her from the floor and onto her bed; John still looked livid, even if his features softened when he looked at her pale, sleeping face.

    And when he turned from her, to look at the nurses who were still in the room; I thought my calm brother was going to do something he would regret in the future.

    “She was having a panic attack.” He yelled at them, “You didn’t have to give her drugs to make her calm down. I managed to stop one of them only this morning.”

    “By kissing her.” Scott muttered, turning his head away from John.

    “Shut up, Scott.” John snapped, rounding on him, “I learned how to deal with panic attacks after I started getting them. So I know how scared she was feeling.”

    That shocked all of us. To my knowledge, nobody knew about the things John went through after the accident.

    “And I’ve had Versed. I was given it when I was in hospital the last time, and I couldn’t sleep.”

    “Wait.” Scott said, looking thoroughly confused, “What exactly is Versed?”

    “It’s the trade name for Midazolam. It’s used for procedural sedation, trouble sleeping, anesthesia and severe agitation.” John told us, “It works by making people sleepy, decreasing anxiety and causing a loss of ability to create new memories.”

    This is when a nurse decided to give us his opinion, and why they decided to give her this medication.

    “We gave it to her for Psychomotor Agitation. It did its job, and it calmed her down.”

    “And the middle-aged and the elderly are more at risk to express it. A twelve year old is not in that age range, unless she’s wearing a really good disguise.”

    I put my hand up. All this medical stuff was interesting, but I was having a hard time understanding all of it.

    John understood why my hand was up, so he went on to explaining what they were talking about.

    “Psychomotor Agitation is a set of signs and symptoms that stem from mental tension and anxiety. A typical manifestation includes pacing, wringing hands and other similar actions. In more severe cases, the motions may become harmful to the individual.”

    My thumbs up told him that I understood, and was a form of a thank you without actually having to say it.

    Scott just looked on in shock at John’s revelation at having panic attacks in the hospital and at home, and also the fact that he was drugged while in the hospital recovering from his injuries.

    “Why didn’t you tell us?” He whispered, barely audible over the sounds of everybody in the room.

    “You didn’t need to know about the Midazolam, and I got good at hiding my panic… That’s why I started distancing myself from you guys.” He answered, sitting on the edge of Jane’s bed, and sweeping the stray hairs off her face.

    And before any of us could react, Alan did something very unusual; for him at least.

    He relinquished his grip on my sleeve, walked up to the bed John and Jane were, and climbed onto it; getting a bit of help off our brother when he struggled to get onto the bed himself.

    It wasn’t the fact that he went to them on his own that shocked us. It was that he, ever so gently, lifted Jane’s arm, placed his bear by her side, and put her arm back in its original position.

    “Allie…” I said in disbelief.

    “You’ve never allowed any of us to touch your bear, let alone hold it.” Gordon interjected, not angrily but in a shocked voice that conveyed all of our moods perfectly.

    “Jane said she wasn’t safe, and mama said Lincoln would always protect me. So maybe he’ll do the same for Jane.”

    Our mom got him the bear, Lincoln, for his third birthday; saying he was a magic bear who would keep the monsters away. That Lincoln was would protect him from the creature that lived in the shadows and under the bed.

    “Jodie.” Scott muttered, his voice barely audible.

    “Scott…” John warned, giving him one of his infamous scary stares.

    “What?” Gordon asked, almost bouncing on the balls of his feet, “What did Scotty say? And why’s Johnny got his death glare face on?”

    “Her name’s Jodie.” He said louder, ignoring the daggers that John’s eyes were throwing at him, “That’s what started off the panic attack, or whatever it was.”

    I caught some movement in my peripheral vision, and turned just in time to see one of the nurses leaving the room, but it was John’s shout that got me to turn my attention back to them.

    “Do you have any idea the danger you’ve just put her in?”

    Scott just stared numbly at the floor, only looking up when our quiet, non-confrontational brother got up and shoved him hard in the chest.

    “Look at me, Scott.” He shouted, before pointing at Jane… Jodie's sleeping form in the bed, “She is now in danger. Do you understand that? You’ve heard her story, heard why she goes by Jane Doe, and you -“ Another shove in the chest, “- have just announced who she is.”

    “So they know her name, so what?” Scott retorted, finally finding his voice again.

    John gave an unamused laugh, before turning back to look Jodie.

    “As soon as they put her name into the hospital system, the police and CPS will be notified. The people who she’s running from, the one’s who abused her, are going to get called, and they will take her away to that hell hole again.” He held up his arms, before letting them fall to his sides again, “But hey, what does it matter. When they get her back, the next time she leaves will be in a wooden box!”

    His face whitened at those words, and he looked ready to collapse or throw up at the mention of it.

    “But… But they don’t know…”

    “What? The rest of her name?” John asked, giving a humorless laugh, “Her nickname is Greenie. What are the odds that the nickname has something to do with her last name?”

    I didn’t think it was possible for Scott’s face to go any paler then it already was, but it did. The little colour he’d been able to regain quickly vanished.

 

**~oOo~**

 

    The next couple of hours were stressful, to say the least.

    John took Grandma over to his bed to explain Jodie’s past, while Scott kept us entertained by playing Uno.

    What I did manage to overhear of her history was kidnap, rape and runaway. To be honest, I didn’t want to hear anymore about what happened to her.

    I did manage to hear John say that he would be willing to talk to dad though, which was a good thing I guess.

    About an hour after the nurse first left, he came back in, picked up Jodie’s chart, and wrote something on it. Being nosey, I looked at what had been written.

    _Name: Jodie Greene. DOB: 07/24/2039._

Well, this wasn’t good. This was very far from being good.

    And as soon as Jodie started to stir, John was by her side; holding her hand, and whispering about how she was safe.

    When she did wake, Scott said something about ‘wouldn’t an existentialist just wait in the dark until the light came back one,’ which John actually had to think about for a while before answering.

    All that went out the window though, when we were all doing our own thing - John and Jodie signing to each other, Alan and Gordon playing snap, Scott talking to Grandma, and me doing some art - and the double doors opened to a woman in a navy blue suit.

    “Who are you?” Grandma asked, getting up from her seat.

    “My name is Catrina Harrington, from Child Protective Services. I’m here to talk to Miss Jodie Greene."

 


	19. Regret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter.

**Chapter 19**

** Regret  **

** POV – John  **

 

    Many things happened when the CPS worker announced who she was, and what she was here to do.

    Jodie shifted so suddenly that she fell out of the bed and onto the floor, Scott knocked his chair over when he stood, and I sank to my knees on the floor by my friend; trying to stop her panic before it became a problem.

    “They’re going to take me away.” She cried, moving into my open arms and crying into my chest.

    “I made you a promise, and I’m going to stick by it.” I whispered, rubbing her back and placing a kiss to the top of her head, “They’ll have to go through me before they take you away.”

    She gave a watery chuckle, before hugging me tighter and murmuring about getting my shirt wet.

    The only thing Catrina did, was watch us. It seemed like she was very interested in how we were acting together.

    “What do you want with her?” Scott asked, moving to stand protectively over us, “What talk are you going to have with her?”

    “Oh God, please don’t let it be the sex talk.” Jodie groaned, making all of us laugh; except Gordon and Alan who were thoroughly confused by the statement.

    “It’s not that kind of talk.” Catrina said angrily, killing the cheerful mood of the room, “Miss Greene has been missing for the last three years, and her family has been very worried about her.”

    Jodie stiffened in my arms at the mention of her ‘family’, but she didn’t start to freak out; which was a good thing.

    But the thing that bothered me, was Catrina.

    She was being a monumental bitch, had no sense of humor, and seemed to not be able to pick up on the tension and anxiety rolling off of Jodie.

    And Jodie was terrified. She didn’t have to tell me what she was feeling, because I could just tell.

    “I don’t want to go with her.”

    “Why?” I asked, “Do you know who she is?”

    It only occurred to me after asking this, that I didn’t really explain what I meant; but Jodie did get what I was trying to say.

    “No.” She shook her head, “I just have a bad feeling. You know when something just doesn’t feel right, and your gut tells you?”

    I knew exactly what she meant, because I sometimes get that feeling when I meet new people. It wasn’t because I had anything against them, it was just the instinct of ‘this person can’t be trusted.’

    And I was getting that instinct from Catrina right now, but there was nothing I could do about it. No matter what happened, Jodie had to go with her. She had to answer the questions given to her.

    “You know you have to talk to her. There’s no getting out of it.”

    “Yeah, I know that.” She told me, “It doesn’t mean that I’m not allowed to think about every possible way of getting out of it.”

    “I’ll be right here when you get back.” I said, before amending my answer, “Well, not right here, right here. I think my legs would go numb if I did that, but you get what I’m getting at.”

    She chuckled, using my t-shirt to wipe her eyes.

    “Come on, Skinny Minnie. Let’s get you up.” Scott joked, hauling Jodie to her feet. He probably sensed that our conversation was over.

    “Surely if we’re talking about John, shouldn’t you be calling him Skinny Mickey?”

    Both Scott and I laughed at that. Had it been anybody but Jodie or a member of my family, I’d have been really upset and angry.

    “Don’t worry, I’ll get Skinny Mickey up as well, but we need to get you up and into your bed first.”

    “I can get myself up.” I grumbled, stretching out my legs; and immediately regretting it as the feeling rushed back into my legs, “Ow! Pins and needles. Pins and needles.”

    “That’s why I was going to help you.” Scott chuckled, helping Jodie onto the bed, “Because…”

    He was interrupted by the voice of the CPS worker who, by this time, had made her way from the door to the edge of Jodie’s bed.

    “It is imperative that I talk to you, Miss Greene.” She paused slightly, and looked at all of us, “Alone, if possible.”

    Just by the look on Jodie’s face, I could tell she was going to say something sarcastic or start cracking jokes. She was a little like Gordon in that respect.

    “Sorry sweetheart, but four of the people in this room are patients, and I don’t think I’m allowed to move from this bed, given that I was drugged a couple of hours ago.” She gave Catrina a wink, before turning to me and signing, ‘ _she’s an idiot._ ’

    Luckily I wasn’t the only one to laugh, but I think I was laughing for a completely different reason. I laughed cause of the sign, and my two youngest brothers laughed because of what she’d said.

    “I’m sure you could come into a private room with me.”

    “You’ll have to check with the doctors then, won’t you?”

    She turned and left the room, only to return a couple of minutes later with, who I will call, Bitch Nurse. He was still wearing the slight smirk he had when he was writing Jodie’s real name onto her chart.

    That smirk meant nothing out of his mouth was going to be good or helpful. At best, he was just going to cause more problems, and be a general pain in the ass.

    “Miss Greene seems to be under the impression that she’s not allowed to move from here, because of some after effects of drugs. Is this true?”

    The nurse looked a little sheepish, but he was staying strong on his bitchiness. I mean, seriously, what is it with this guy?

    “As long as it isn’t for too long and you don’t make her concentrate too much, there shouldn’t be a problem with taking her into a private room to question her.”

    Jodie’s jaw dropped to the floor, and I guess mine did as well.

    Being an anesthetic, Midazolam is a little like having general anesthesia before going in for surgery. You just talk a lot of shit and don’t make a lot of sense until it’s worked its way out of your system.

    “Come along, Miss Greene. I promise I won’t keep you too long. You’ll be back in bed before you know it.”

    I shared a look with Jodie as she slipped back off her bed, and we both knew that we were thinking exactly the same thing… Nothing good is going to come from this meeting.

 

**~oOo~**

 

    While we waited for Jodie and Catrina to return, I rang dad; telling him that I was willing to talk if he could stay calm and not raise his voice. Thankfully he agreed to my terms, and said he’d start making his way to the hospital in the next few minutes. The other two patients had left just before the CPS worker came in, saying they were off to finish the game they had been playing before all of this started.

    What we didn’t know though, was that our hopefully quiet evening of peaceful talking was going to be turned on its head by the reappearance of Jodie – who looked very white and panicked – as she came bolting through the doors.

    For a couple of minutes, we didn’t do anything. We just watched as she ran up to the window, swear, then spin round and look at the ceiling.

    “What’s wrong?” Scott asked, getting up from his position on one of the visitor chairs where he’d been doing the last of his homework.

    “Speedy.” Was all she said.

    And I have to admit that I felt as confused as Scott looked. Even when he looked at me to see if I knew what she was talking about, all I could do was shrug at him.

    “What does that even mean?”

    “She called him Speedy. It was a slip of the tongue, but she said it.”

    “And the significance of that name is?”

    “Only people in his inner circle knew that nickname.”

    That’s when I got what she was talking about. She was talking about somebody who was in the hell hole she called a home.

    “Are you sure?”

    “Without a doubt.”

    I thought about a plan of action for a fraction of a second before I asked my question.

    “What do you need?”


	20. Know Your Enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost at the end guys. Only 2 more chapters after this.

** Chapter 20 **

** Know Your Enemy **

****

****

** POV – Scott **

 

    I watched this entire exchange with wrapped attention. It was like watching a Ping-Pong match, but instead of a ball being hit back and forth, words were being exchanged in rapid succession.

    However, when John asked ‘what do you need?’, I was very confused. He might not have understood what she was talking about at first, but he certainly got it after thinking it through.

    “A laptop or computer, whether it be a holo or not doesn’t matter. If we can get two, we’ll be able to get the work done twice as fast.”

    “Is that all?”

    She thought for a couple of seconds before answering.

    “An escape route would be nice, but the windows don’t open enough to let anyone out, and going out the way I came in isn’t an option. I could escape through the air ducts. I need to get up to the stars.”

    John nodded in confirmation.

    “Scott, can you lend your laptop?”

    “Uh… Sure.” I said, not really having any idea what was going on.

    “Great. I’ll try and get my hands on another one and meet up with you.” John told her, as she pulled a bed into the middle of the room, grabbing my backpack, and climbing onto the bed. How she was going to get into my laptop without the passcode, I had no idea.

    “Don’t come alone, and put the bed back.” Were the last words she said before she disappeared into the ceiling, and closed the open hatch she’d gone through.

    Before I even asked the question that was on the tip of my tongue, John leapt off his bed and put the one in the middle of the room back in its original place.

    And it wasn’t long before I knew, or at the very least suspected, why the rapid-fire conversation had only been facts and essential questions being asked. They didn’t have time to relay all the information needed.

    Not even thirty seconds after Jodie vanished into the air ducts, Catrina and the nurse burst through the double doors; both of them sporting the beginnings of impressive shiners and bloody noses.

    “Where is she?” Catrina asked, putting the back of her hand underneath her nose to stop the blood from dripping onto her white shirt.

    John, without missing a beat, replied with, “I have no idea. We haven’t seen her since you took her away to ask her your questions.”

    The look both Catrina and the nurse gave him were ones of disbelief and suspicion, as he shrugged his shoulders.

    “Why do I have the feeling that you aren’t telling us the complete truth?”

    “I don’t know. Ask my brothers if you don’t believe me, but I don’t think Grandma will be happy if you wake Alan up. He’ll be bouncing off the walls if you do that."

   I looked over to see that Alan was indeed fast asleep, and Gordon was close to following him.

    Catrina looked like she didn’t quiet believe John when he said that, but anyone who has kids or younger siblings knows the truth… When they get up after a nap, it’s like somebody has fed them sugar or has changed their batteries to those long-life ones that last about twelve hours.

    “Seeming as, according to the staff, you two are inseparable, I find it very hard to believe that you haven’t seen her. She’d have come to you after she bolted from our interview.”

    “That’s because we’re as smart as each other.” John told her, shrugging, “It’s very hard to find somebody who is almost your double.”

    She gave him another look of disbelief.

    And I have to admit, John is pretty good at not telling the whole truth, but just enough so nobody can tell that he’s lying. We certainly don’t give our quiet brother the credit he deserves.

    “Where is she?” Catrina asked, stepping forward and giving John a sly smile, “All I want to know is where she is.”

    John got a thoughtful look on his face. I’d never seen him act like this, ever. Maybe coming to the hospital did him some good. Did all of us some good.

    “You know what? I think I saw her run past towards the lifts.”

    “You think, or you know?”

    “There are a lot of ginger haired people around. Jodie and I aren’t the only ones.”

    If Catrina could breath fire or blow steam out her ears, she probably would’ve. She was no doubt coming to the same conclusion that I had; that John was playing her.

    “Why do I get the feeling that you are being obstructive on purpose?”

    “I have no idea why you would think that.”

    “Where is she?”

    “I think she went to the waiting room. She mentioned earlier that she was going to meet our dad when he arrived.”

    “See. That wasn’t too bad was it?” Catrina smiled.

    John shook his head and slumped his shoulders before Catrina and the nurse turned and exited the room.

    He waited a couple of minutes before he finally moved back into action.

    “Let me guess, you didn’t tell her the truth about where Jodie went.”

    “Not one bit of the truth.” John answered, hugging our Grandma and three younger brothers, “You didn’t think I would, did you?”

    I shook my head, and let him pull me towards the doors that led into the corridor.

    “Where are we going?” I asked, as John went to the desk and pulled out two of the holo-tablets, “And you can’t just steal that.”

    “I’m not stealing. I’m temporarily misappropriating it.” He told me, “And isn’t it obvious where we’re going?”

    “Not really.”

    “We’re going to the stars.”

 

**~oOo~**

 

    The stars was code for the roof. How could I not get that?

    Both John and Jodie laughed at me for not getting it, especially when it was so obvious when you got what it meant.

    “Laugh at me all you want, but I’m not doing anything illegal.”

    And they were. Jodie had used my laptop to hack into the security cameras of the hospital and had it by their feet, as they used the two holo-tablets that John had ‘temporarily misappropriated’ to hack into the FBI database; leaving clues as to where we were and why we needed help.

    “Yes it is illegal, but we need to get their attention. I think our lives being in danger trumps hacking the FBI, Kansas police and the CIA.” Jodie said, not looking up from the screen.

    “You know Catrina won’t wait forever, right? She’ll soon know that something is wrong and start searching for you.”

    “Hence why I sent her as far away as possible.” John only looked up from his screen to check the cameras, “Dad’s here as well.”

    “So what do we do?”

    John gave me an incredulous look.

    “Call him you idiot. He needs to stall them.”

    With that, I whipped out my phone, and put in dad’s number; carefully watching the grainy colour image of my father walking through the automatic doors.

    Yes, the tablets were better for imaging but it was quicker to hack on them, so my laptop had been sacrificed to being the eyes of the operation.

    “Come on, dad. Pick up.” I muttered, getting up and pacing the roof.

    “Jeff Tracy, how…”

    “Dad!” I didn’t even let him finish his usual greeting on his work phone, “I need you to listen to me very carefully, and pretend that it’s a business call. Do you understand?”

    “Yes, I do.”

    I breathed a sigh of relief.

    “Okay, there is a woman and a nurse…” I checked the cameras, “North east of your position. She’s wearing a navy blue suit. Do you see her?”

    He turned his head a little to look in the direction I’d just told him.

    “Yes.”

    “Her name is Catrina. She isn’t who she’s claiming to be, and neither is the nurse. You can’t trust them.”

    “Alright. What do you want me to do?” He asked, turning his head back to its original position.

    “Try and stall them. We need a little more time to get things up and running. But with the two geniuses working as fast as they are, it shouldn’t be too long till they’re finished.”

    “Who’s with you?”

    “John and Jodie. You know her as Jane though. Ginger girl who yelled at you yesterday or the day before.”

    “Alright. I’ll see what I can do. Call me when you have more information."

    “We will. We can follow where you go with the cameras. Just try and stay where you are, but if you have to move, stay where there are people. They’re dangerous, and I have no idea what they have on them.”

    “Got it. Bye.” He hung up.

    And my anxiety didn’t seem to go away after our talk. If anything, it got worse as I watched Catrina walk towards my dad and shake his hand.

    “He’ll be okay. I doubt they’ll try anything with someone as high profile as your father. That would lead to a bigger investigation then some suicidal teen who finally accomplished something she’s been trying for months.”

    “Can you get sound on this thing?”

    She shook her head.

    “No. If I used one of the tablets then maybe, but not with the quality video that we have. And any attempt to make this video better would alert the hospital to where we are, and we don’t want that.”

    “I understand that, but what if something happens to him? We lost our mom at the beginning of the year, we can’t lose our dad too.”

    “Believe me, I get…”

    “No, you don’t.” I interrupted, “You don’t know…”

    It was her turn to interrupt me.

    “Yes, I do. Unless you’re forgetting that I became an orphan at the age of three. I know what it’s like to lose both parents in something that I couldn’t control. If I get even the slightest hint that your father is in danger, I will do what I can to protect him."

   “Sorry.” I muttered, suddenly feeling a little bit ashamed of what I’d said. If anybody knew about loss, it was Jodie.

    She just waved off my attempts at apologies, stating ‘no harm, no foul.’

    After that, they worked in silence for a while, only speaking if they had to ask about each others progress and if they were nearly done.

    However, all of that changed when Jodie glanced at the video feed in one of her regular checks. She hastily clicked send and ran for the door; going back into the main building, before going to the elevators.

    John and I followed her, getting to her just before the lift doors closed behind us.

    “Care to share with us what’s going on?” I asked as she kept pushing the button for the ground floor.

    “Not particularly, no.” She replied, watching as the floor numbers seemed to go agonizingly slow, “But seeming as I was the only one to notice, I better tell you. She’s starting to get suspicious and impatient.”

    “And how can you tell that from a grainy video feed?”

    “Body language.” She looked at John, “I hope you’re nearly done, cause I have the police on their way, and I left the FBI the co-ordinates for here. They’ll be here by the end of the day.”

    My little brother gulped and started working again. I was going to be taking that as a ‘no I’m not ready.’

 

**~oOo~**

 

    As soon as the doors opened on the ground floor, Jodie bolted again; pushing open a double door and going out into the waiting room.

    We must have made a strange sight - three teens, one slightly covered in dust, two obviously patients, and all of us looking scared and worse for wear - running into the room.

    “Whatever happens, do not interfere.” Jodie told us, walking away from us and shouting, “Catrina!"

    I had to grab John round the waist to stop him from running to protect her. In the little time I’ve known and spent with her, I knew that she was smart and knew what she was doing. The only reason she would do this, is if she had a plan.

    “Miss Greene.” Catrina smiled, turning from my father, “How lovely of you to show up. Jeff just wasn’t being all that helpful.”

    “Well I’m here now.” She kept walking forward, past curious spectators and people who knew her.

    Catrina kept smiling sweetly, until Jodie got closer; her smile then faded, and she punched my friend in the stomach and face. Jodie fell to the floor and it took all my will power not to run over to her. Everyone else seemed to be in shock.

    Jodie coughed a couple of time - spitting out something that looked a lot like blood - and slowly pushed herself back up to stand.

    “I will admit, I deserved that.” She joked, waving off my dad and wiping her mouth on the arm of her long sleeved top, “Anything else you want to do to me?”

    “Plenty, but all that can wait. It’s time to take you back to where you belong.”

    The mixture of emotion that played on her face was gone in a matter of seconds. It was like she wasn’t going to show what she really felt in front of this bitch.

    But before we knew it, Catrina had Jodie by the wrist and was dragging her towards the exit and out of the hospital. That’s when I started running after them.

    We didn’t get very far though, cause as soon as we got outside, we were bombarded by the flashing lights and sirens of the police just beyond the hospital perimeter.

    I couldn’t hear what was being said, but by the looks of it, Catrina and the nurse were being arrested, and Jodie was being wrapped in an orange blanket and led back to the confines of the hospital.

    There was no point in trying to stop John from running over and hugging her, so I didn’t try to stop him. In fact, I followed suit and ran over to them as well; bringing both of them into a hug of my own.

    “I’m just going to throw this out there, and ask that you don’t allow me to do anything that stupid ever again.” She cried as I joined in on the hug.

    “I can say that we’ll remind you never to do it again, but whether you chose to follow that or not is up to you.”

    And this is how we stayed until we were ushered back into the hospital.


	21. See You Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John finally gets to leave the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be posting the last 2 chapters today.

** Chapter 21 **

** See You Again **

 

 

**POV - Virgil**

 

    A week had passed since the incident with the CPS worker and Jodie, and things were slowly getting back to normal; even if our ginger friend was still jumpy when new people came into her ‘sanctuary.'

    We’d learned something none of us knew about John that day, and it was the fact that he hacked during his down time. All the hours he’d been hauled up in his room on his old-school laptop, typing away furiously; and he’d been coding, and hacking secure data networks.

    But all that work had gone to good use. It had helped in bringing down a group that the police, FBI, and CIA had been trying to capture. This type of crime wasn’t something the GDF handled.

    From what I’d been able to get out of my two older brothers and Jodie, the plan to re-kidnap and kill Jodie had been foiled by en episode of Elementary. In said episode, the police couldn’t charge the escapees until they left the floor. It was the same in this instance, but they couldn’t charge them with anything until they left the hospital grounds.

    When Jodie had returned holding her stomach, sporting a split lip and the beginnings of a black eye, with an orange blanket wrapped round her shoulders, we didn’t know what to think. The doctors had also checked her stomach, and found a large bruise starting to form on her ribs.

    “I’m okay.” She’d told us, sitting up, “I’ve had worse things happen to me.”

    Only now, she didn’t have to worry about going through something like that ever again. The entire group had been brought down only a couple of days after Catrina had been arrested.

    Jodie had sighed in relief when the FBI came in to tell her what had happened, and that while they weren’t happy at the hacking of their system, they were going to overlook who did it as long as it didn’t happen again. She’d joked with them, saying, “there goes my promising career in espionage,” and taking a drink from her glass of water.

    “Hey, Virg. You with us?” A hand was being waved in front of my face, and I jumped back in surprise, “That was an obvious no.”

    “Well I am now.” I said, feeling a little bit sheepish as the others laughed.

    “You didn’t miss much.” Gordon told me, “Unless you wanted to see Johnny being beaten at chess three times in a row.”

    “Nobody beats John.”

    “Well Jodie did.” Scott threw a card on the growing pile I hadn’t noticed, “And John was not happy about it. He’s now refusing to play with her.”

    “Is that why we’re now playing Uno again?” Jodie asked, placing her blue one on the pile, “Don’t feel bad, John. I just have a lot of free time on my hands.”

    I looked at her, and while she was healing, she still looked like hell. The whole of the left side of her face was black and blue, her lip was still a bit swollen and scabbed, and her stomach looked more like an artists pallet then her face then her face did. And even though she wouldn’t admit it, her stomach was still giving her problems.

    “Yes, because you cheat at chess.” John grumbled, picking up two cards and putting them in his hand.

    “How do I cheat at chess? If I’m honest, I can normally Mate people in six moves, if not less. You’re the first real competition I’ve had."

    “I don’t know, but you do.”

    Jodie started laughing, and then grabbed her side; rubbing it lightly and holding her breath.

    “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts when I laugh.”

    “Sorry.” John muttered, pulling her into a one-armed hug, “I didn’t mean to make you laugh or hurt you.”

    “It’s fine.” She told him, returning the hug, “Once all my injuries heal, it won’t hurt as much. You’d think being through something like this before would help with my pain threshold, but no.”

    The way she said ‘but no’ made me want to laugh, but I knew it would be wrong to do so. How could she be sarcastic and make fun of what had happened to her? There was nothing funny about it.

“I mean, I don’t mind looking like I’ve done ten rounds with Mike Tyson, but I don’t like it hurting every time I breath. It’s annoying.”

“I’ve got to say that, yes she’s evil, but she packs one hell of a punch to do that.” Scott said, placing down another one of his cards, “I’m not saying what she did was right, but she I didn’t think she could pack that kind of punch.”

“Well, she’s very deceptive.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

    So I had to wait until they finished their game before the dealt me in. John won the first game, and jumped up and down to celebrate, while Jodie just looked at him with mock fury on her face.

    After a couple minutes of celebration, Jodie got up, lightly hit him on the back of the head, and told him to sit down so we could begin the next game.

    And that is how we continued. Playing Uno to varying levels of difficulty, including putting three packs together and tripling the amount of cards we got given at the beginning of the game.

    It took us a while to realize that our father was standing by the double doors, just watching us laughing and having fun. He wasn’t angry at being ignored. He actually had a smile on his face, and a coffee in his hand.

    “Hello, Mr. Tracy.” Jodie greeted, putting down a pick up four card and sticking her tongue out at John, "I change to green.”

    “I hate you.” John told her, reluctantly picking up four cards.

    “You love me really.” She said, and winked at him before saying, “And a little birdie told me that you don’t go round and kiss just anybody.”

    Our father, who had just taken a drink of his coffee, almost choked himself when these words were uttered.

    Gordon tried to stifle his laugh by coughing, but no matter how much he tried to cover his mirth, it still came out a giggle.

    “Well as I already told this ‘little birdie’…” He gave Scott a knowing look, “It’s an effective method of stopping panic attacks, and he knows it cause he saw it work on you.”

    “Touché.”

    “I’m sorry, but I’m incredibly lost over here.” Our father walked forward, drink still in his hand, “Can somebody please explain to me what has been going on over the past couple of weeks?”

    And so the tale began, starting at John’s suicide attempt and finishing with Jodie’s plan of escape for good. They glossed over what happened to cause the major panic attack four of us walked in on, but that didn’t matter. All of us were caught up and on the same page about what happened.

    We must have been telling the story for a while, because soon lunch was being bought to the eight of us. It wasn’t much, just a drink, sandwich and some crisps for each of us, but at least we didn’t have to leave.

Once we’d finished eating, we continued out game of Uno, but soon we were interrupted again. This time, it was by a doctor who was carrying a clipboard and a pen.

“Hey guys.” He greeted, a smile on his face.

“Hey, Kieran.” John and Jodie said together, identical grins plastered on both their faces.

“I have some good news for one of you.”  
“Are you guys finally allowing me to go to Cape Kennedy? You wouldn’t let me go when Greg won tickets earlier on this year.”

Kieran shook his head and mouthed ‘no’ to her. She slouched her shoulders and started pouting.

“My news is actually for John.”

John looked very surprised at this revelation. He even pointed at himself and mouthed ‘me?’

“Yes you, John.” Kieran told him, looking like he was trying hard not to laugh at their reactions, “I am clearing you to go home. You’re emotional state has improved greatly since our first session, and it looks like you have finally started confiding in your family about your feelings. One more night in here, and you’re free to go by lunch tomorrow.”

** ~oOo~ **

After just over two weeks in the Suicide Watch Ward, John was finally coming home, but I don’t think he was as excited as the rest of us were.

“You should be celebrating.” Scott said when we came in the next morning, “You’ll be able to sleep in your own bed again, have the sounds of home, stargaze on the roof whenever you want…”

“But what about Jodie? She’s going to be the only patient in this ward because everyone else got cleared to go home. I feel bad about leaving her in here.”

“Don’t feel bad, John.”

Scott literally jumped the metaphorical ten feet into the air, and I have to admit that I would have too if I hadn’t caught her in my peripheral vision.

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“You just seem to pop up out of thin air. It’s a little unnerving. I really should get a bell to put round your neck.”

She just shrugged.

“People have mentioned doing that before, but nobody has ever had the nerve to actually do it.”

“Well I might be the first to do it then.”

Just then, Gordon and Alan ran past me and straight to Jodie. It was almost like they were having a race to see who could get to her first.

“Woah! Slow down, fish and sprout.” She said as she got down on her knees, “No need to rush me. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But Johnny is, and if he has to leave, doesn’t that mean we’re not allowed to visit you?” Alan asked, tears welling up in his blue eyes.

“Who told you that?”

“A dream. It told me that I wouldn’t be allowed to see you if we left.”

Jodie pulled both of them into a hug, even if that action caused her pain. And I could tell by the look on her face that it did.

“Well that dream was wrong. You can visit me whenever you want. I’m not going to stop you from doing it.” She told them, rubbing their backs lightly, “As long as you go to school, keep your grades up, and don’t cause too much trouble for your brothers, father and Grandma; you can come by every day if it’s alright with your family.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” She smiled, “Now, I have to get up. At my old age, things start to seize up after a while.”

I walked over to her, as did Scott. We each took an arm and helped her up into a standing position.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” I said, pulling her into a hug, “I’m gonna miss skiving school to see you.”

“Is it my charming personality?” She joked, returning my hug.

“No. It’s your way of looking on the bright side, even when you feel like your mind is at war with you.”

It was Scott who hugged her next, then Grandma’s turn. Even dad got in on the goodbye hugs.

Eventually, it was John’s turn to hug her, but he wouldn’t do it. He was in tears and shaking his head.

“This is wrong. We shouldn’t be leaving you here. You deserve to be happy, not cooped up in here.”

“I’m in here for my own protection.” She said, as she initiated the hug, “They can’t release me onto the streets, and I refuse to be put back into the foster care system. Until they find somebody who will take me in, I have to stay here.”

John started sobbing into her shoulder, and she rubbed his back.

“This isn’t goodbye, John. This is a see you soon. I’ll be very upset if you don’t come to visit me.”

“I will come visit you. I promise. Everyday if I’m allowed, and if that’s what you want.”

Tears were streaming down Jodie’s face as she pulled back.

“Now, it’s time for you to go. Don’t leave your family waiting forever.”

And this is how we left her; standing in the middle of the room, crying, with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Let’s go home.” Dad said, clicking the down button on the elevator keypad.


	22. Epilogue - The Kids From Yesterday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three Years Later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of this fic, but there are still 3 other stories connected to this, so keep your eyes open.

** Epilogue **

** The Kids From Yesterday **

** **

 

**POV – Jeff**

 

_ Three Years Later _

    If you’d have told me three years ago that I would have six kids living with me, I’d have said you were crazy, that you’d lost your marbles… But it was true. I now had six kids.

And here I am chaperoning them.

    The end of year dance had me sitting on the bleachers, watching as all six of my charges were dancing and laughing with each other.

    Scott had finally finished his schooling, and he’d been accepted into the USAF as a pilot. He’d done it on the sly, and hadn’t told me until I asked after seeing the letter of acceptance laying on the table.

    John had changed a lot. He was still bookish and preferred to be alone at times, but he’d finally started opening up about his feelings, talking more, and actually joking and being sarcastic. 

    Virgil had started playing the piano again, composing music and doing more art. Even though most of his art was still colourful and full of life, some of his works were to do about mental illness and how easy it was to miss the signs.

    Gordon’s only change was how protective he was of his brothers. He was still part fish, still the joker, and still wore those horrendous Hawaiian shirts.

    Alan was still the baby, but I don’t think he minded that. And he was still one half of the Terrible Two, but we were thinking of changing it to the Terrifying Three.

    After John had been discharged from the hospital, we all made an effort to include him in everything we did, and take what he wanted into account; even if it was going out in the middle of the night to go stargazing, or just doing some quiet reading.

They really kept me on my toes, even if they were starting to turn my hair prematurely grey. And I wouldn’t change a thing.

    A couple of days after John had been release from the hospital, I’d tried to talk to him on his own - wanting to apologize for the way I’d acted and what I’d effectively forced him to do. He’d held up his hand, said “everything happens for a reason,” and about how if it hadn’t happened, he’d never have met Jodie, she’d still be in danger, and he probably wouldn’t have changed for the better.

    I had to agree with him. He’d changed for the better, and so had the rest of his brothers. And so had I.

    In the six months that had followed my wife’s death, I hadn’t taken anything but my own grief into account. Distancing myself from the people I loved until it nearly destroyed them.

    Three years later, and I was glad I had realized my mistake in time. That I still had my family, alive and well.

    And as if that thought had triggered some sort of homing devise, one of my charges started making their way towards me; carefully maneuvering through the sea of bodies that graced the dance floor.

    “Hey, Mr. Tracy.” She waved, the scars on her wrists nothing more than faded purplish white lines, some raised and some not, “You enjoying yourself over here?”

    “How many times have I told you to call me Jeff?” I’d tried to get her to call me dad one time, but she’d said that the last people she called that had died, and she didn’t want that to happen to me.

    “I don’t know, as many times as it takes me to listen?” She responded, sitting down next to me.

    She never failed to make me smile. And when paired with Gordon and Alan, she was a formidable opponent. Jodie was the honorary member of the Terrible Two; or the soon to be named Terrifying Three.

    “You’ve been living with us for almost three years, and I have to tell you at least twice a month. That’s a grand score of… Seventy two times.”

    “Very far off there.” She told me.

    “What do you mean by that?” I asked, giving her a confused look.

    “Well, you tell me at least twice a week, making that a total of -“ She thought for a couple of seconds, “About one thousand, two hundred and…”

    “Forty eight.” A new voice said.

    I turned my head from Jodie - who was trying, and failing miserably, to contain her laughter - to my left.

    John had taken the other seat next to me, his gold coloured tie tied around his head and a frown on his face.

    “This is not funny.” John told her, folding his arms and huffing out a breath.

    “It is.” She replied, finally getting her giggles under control, “And you have nobody to blame but yourself.”

    “How am I to blame?”

    Their little conversations, that only they could understand, were always entertaining to watch. The longest one I had ever witnessed was over dinner a few weeks back, where it had lasted for nearly forty-five minutes.

    “You shouldn’t have got involved.”

    My attention peaked at that.

    “Shouldn’t have got involved in what?” I asked. They didn’t seem to want to answer that, so I did the next best thing, “I’ll make you eat some of Grandma’s cookies until you answer.”

    “It wasn’t my fault.”

    Works every time.

    “What happened?”

    “Jodie punched Eddie French, and then kneed him in the crown jewels. I think she might have broken his nose.”

    “Well he shouldn’t have touched my arse and tried to touch my boobs then, should he? If him and his ‘friends’ didn’t learn their lesson the first time, then he was just asking for it.”

    Ah, the ‘Great Fight of Kansas High’ that had made the news after a video of it went viral. First day back, and within two hours of the first bell, I had been called to take my four kids home.

    “But did I really have to be the only person to get punished for stopping the fight?” He asked, “I wasn’t the only one to pull you off him.”

    All of a sudden, a very loud yell could be heard over the music. It made everyone but our English ginger jump.

    “JODIE!!!!!”

    I recognized Scott’s voice, even if I couldn’t see him at first. When I spotted him, I had to try really hard not to burst into laughter. Scott was making his way towards us. He also had his grey blue tie round his head, but it didn’t look like there was anything else going on.

    “Who said you were the only one who got punished?”

    “Well, I can’t say I know exactly what you did but… Oh. Maybe you should start running.”

    “Nah. I’m just gonna stay here.” She said, before raising her voice, “Hey, Scott. How was the punch?”

    As he started getting closer, I could see why he was angry. What was once his white shirt, now looked like a rainbow of colour.

    “You know damn well what it was like. What the hell did you put in it?” He asked, gesturing to his shirt.

    “It’s just some of that dye we used on Al and Gordo’s hair. Don’t worry, it’ll wash out.”

    “So that was you who did that? You told me you had nothing to do with it.”

    “Yes. No. Oh, crap.”

    When Gordon and Alan had come downstairs for dinner three months ago with shocking blue and red hair respectively, we were shocked. The school photos were… Interesting, to say the least.

    “You’re sure that this will wash out?”

    “Of course. It came out of their hair, didn’t it?”

    And as if on queue, the last of my charges came up to us; my two youngest with their hair still faintly tinged the colours that they had been dyed, and my middle trying to keep a smile off his face. Scott gave Jodie a knowing look.

    “Okay, the colour might not wash out. But you have to admit that the colour does last for a long time.”

    We all started laughing at that, and I got out my phone.

    “Alright. Before anything else happens to you lot, I want to get a picture of all of you together.”

    They quickly obliged, and I was pretty certain that it was one of the weirdest, if not the weirdest, photos I had ever taken; what with two of my kids with ties round their heads - and one of those with a dyed shirt - two with pale blue and red hair, one with his sleeves rolled up, his shirt untucked, and his green tie hanging loosely round his neck, and Jodie with her hair slowly coming out of it’s plait crown.

    But it was still a picture that I would treasure forever.

    Once the photo had been taken, all the boys started dragging Jodie towards the middle of the floor, stating that ‘they each owed her a dance.’

    Watching them go, and thinking back three years, reminded me of an old quote by H. G. Wells. He said, ‘ _Affliction comes to us no to make us sad but sober, not to make us sorry but wise._ ’

    I’d like to think he’s right.


End file.
